The Adam Sandler Hall of Fame and ‘Jay Kelly’ With Noah Baumbach!

Sean and Amanda cover Noah Baumbach’s new film, ‘Jay Kelly,’ starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler. They work through their mixed reactions to the movie and sort through specifically what worked for them and what didn’t (4:24). Then, they speculate Sandler’s potential award chances (41:33) before building his Hall of Fame with their favorite performances (53:50). Finally, Sean is joined by Baumbach to explain why he doesn’t enjoy revisiting his old work, why Clooney was perfect for the part of Jay, and whether his films are getting funnier or more tragic with age (1:49:39). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Noah Baumbach Producer: Jack Sanders Shopping. Streaming. Celebrating. It’s on Prime. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.® Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 0:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:17Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about J. Kelly and the Sandman. Today, we will talk about J. Kelly, the new drama starring George Clooney, which is now streaming on Netflix. Perhaps you've heard about them this week. Adam Sandler co-stars in the film and is one of the highlights of this movie. So we're going to take this opportunity to build the Adam Sandler Hall of Fame, or at least I will.

• 0:38Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I can build an Adam Sandler Hall of Fame. The hesitation you saw in my face was not the second half of that sentence.

• 0:44Sean Fennessey?

  Got it, the first half about Netflix. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Noah Baumbach, the writer and director of J. Kelly, and someone who has not been on the show in six years. It's been six years since Marriage Story. He did make one film in between those two, White Noise. We talked a bit about the period between White Noise and J. Kelly. Talked about making this new movie. Talked about movie stardom. Talked about Sandler. Great conversation. Baumbach, one of our favorites. I hope you'll stick around for that chat. But first, let's take a quick break and then we'll talk.

• 1:12Amanda Dobbins?

  This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Amazon Prime. You know how in every great holiday movie, there's that last minute scramble to make it all come together? From gifts to hosting essentials, Prime's fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and just can't wait. So if you need fast, free delivery that saves the day, it's on Prime. Head to amazon.com/prime to shop now.

• 1:35Sean Fennessey?

  Not a ton of news in the world to break down today. We are-

• 1:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Not since Monday morning.

• 1:40Sean Fennessey?

  Right. And it is Tuesday afternoon. We are following the Warner Brothers Netflix Paramount saga.

• 1:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:47Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot of saber rattling.

• 1:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:49Sean Fennessey?

  Very few men are unsheathing their swords, though.

• 1:52Amanda Dobbins?

  At this moment, I understand that the top price is still $30. I don't think-

• 1:58Sean Fennessey?

  Per share.

• 1:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Per share.

• 1:59Sean Fennessey?

  Not $30 total.

• 2:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Like to announce that I'm buying one of those. And then I personally will be leading the tours on the studio lot.

• 2:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, it's $30 per share if you include the cable company.

• 2:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, so-

• 2:12Sean Fennessey?

  Whatever.

• 2:12Amanda Dobbins?

  But will the, will the Ellison's and their Motley Crue go higher?

• 2:17Sean Fennessey?

  I offered to buy the Discovery Channel and that's it. I just want the Discovery Channel. Does that still exist? Is that still a channel you can watch?

• 2:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm going to buy the golf carts and then just drive around the lot.

• 2:29Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think you'll buy a golf cart in your lifetime?

• 2:31Amanda Dobbins?

  So, growing up, my grandparents, my North Carolina grandparents, they lived about a quarter mile from my aunts and uncles in like very rural North Carolina. So they did buy a golf cart for us to just drive on the road back and forth. And you could either drive on the road or on the back trails. But like, let me tell you, I went hard. I like, I caught air on the golf carts, so.

• 2:56Sean Fennessey?

  That's great. I caught air this morning when I learned Edwin Diaz is not returning to the New York Mets.

• 3:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow, what an incredible segue.

• 3:02Sean Fennessey?

  This is the most important news in my world today. And I'm just, I'm honestly extremely frustrated and devastated. And I don't know what to say. It's not germane to movies, but it is germane to my psychological state.

• 3:15Amanda Dobbins?

  It's germane to two thirds of this podcast because I've never seen Jack Sanders Satter. When I saw him this morning, I said, how are you? And he said, terrible. And then, but you know, I didn't at that moment have the context of Edwin Diaz leaving the Mets. So I just thought Jack was a shambles, which I suppose he is in a sports related sense.

• 3:36Sean Fennessey?

  It really doesn't matter to the grand scheme of the big picture conversation, except to say that I was hoping that the New York Mets would not be embarrassing. And they keep proving me wrong.

• 3:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 3:48Sean Fennessey?

  And I, I, I just, I, I need more things to pour my heart into.

• 3:53Amanda Dobbins?

  So embarrassing in what sense?

• 3:55Sean Fennessey?

  We, we just, we don't optically want to lose the best closer in baseball.

• 4:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 4:01Sean Fennessey?

  To the most dominant franchise in the sport and then replace said closer with the Yankees setup man. That's loser shit. Who had a horrible season? We don't do that. You know, and it could work out. It could be fine. I could be here with you next October and saying, we did it. David Sterns, your daddy. You did it, brother. Today, no bueno.

• 4:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Not feeling good.

• 4:22Sean Fennessey?

  That's all I'm gonna say about it.

• 4:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 4:23Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Thank you for enduring that.

• 4:24Amanda Dobbins?

  You're welcome.

• 4:25Sean Fennessey?

  Would you like to talk about J. Kelly?

• 4:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 4:28Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's discuss it. So as I said, written and directed by Noah Baumbach, his first film since White Noise. It's co-written with Emily Mortimer, the first time they've collaborated together. Emily Mortimer, you know, established actress and also a writer in her own right, wrote Doll and Him, the HBO series some years back. Uh, the film is shot by Lena Sanger, music by Nicholas Bertell, some new collaborators here for Baumbach on this film. It stars George Clooney as the titular Jay, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup. A cavalcade of, I would say elevated cameos from well-known actors and actresses in the world. The story is thus, a famous aging movie star facing a midlife crisis, navigating regret

• 5:07Sean Fennessey?

  and his fractured family relationships while on an impromptu European journey with his manager after his daughter leaves for college, exploring themes of identity, legacy, and the gap between public persona and private life. Is that an adequate encomium of what this film is?

• 5:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. I, I think it is in some ways, uh, no, it's correct. It's also just a road trip buddy comedy. And I think, and a series of vignettes in some ways with the through line of what it is to be a movie star or a father. But yeah, good logline. Great job.

• 5:44Sean Fennessey?

  Is it a good movie?

• 5:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I am completely flummoxed by this movie. I have seen it twice now. I fought to get to the Venice premiere, the world premiere of J. Kelly, because really, nothing is more important to me than a new Noah Baumbach film. Uh, you and I have been living for, waiting for this movie since it was announced.

• 6:06Amanda Dobbins?

  George Clooney starring in a Noah Baumbach movie set in Europe is also pretty high bar in terms of my personal expectations and interests.

• 6:15Sean Fennessey?

  About Hollywood.

• 6:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, so I was as ready as ready could be and I saw it in Venice and we, you know, you saw it at Telluride shortly thereafter, we talked about it. And then briefly, but we're like, we'll wait and see.

• 6:28Sean Fennessey?

  You were mixed at the time and I liked it with some notes.

• 6:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I watched it again in the comfort of my home by the light of the Christmas tree. And I, I, I want to like it so much more than I do. I think it's a real mess. I don't understand about half of it. And there's a lot to like in it, obviously. I like most of the performances. I like the subject matter. I like Europe. I think that it's an interesting visual departure for Baumbach and, you know, he's out of rooms in New York City and into the world and in his bag and experimenting a bit. And I just, I don't think that it

• 7:13Amanda Dobbins?

  comes together in any real way. Specifically for me, you know, there are kind of two, two main thrusts of the movie. There's the Jay Kelly, who is the movie star played by George Clooney, and there is his relationship with his daughters and

• 7:30Amanda Dobbins?

  what he has given up to be a movie star and, you know, the trade out, work-life balance, if you will.

• 7:36Sean Fennessey?

  Truly, that's literally what it is.

• 7:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Familiar to every, to all the mamas out there.

• 7:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and the fathers.

• 7:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, sure. And then this year, I guess, you guys just learned about work-life balance this year, which we'll come back to.

• 7:47Sean Fennessey?

  We had to get through COVID to be able to make art about it, but we've always known.

• 7:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's beautiful.

• 7:52Sean Fennessey?

  Just want you to know that.

• 7:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And then there is another storyline, which is about, just more industry specific, right? And it's the relationship between Jay Kelly and his manager, played by Adam Sandler. And then, you know, there's like the entourage surrounding Jay Kelly and there are some good inside. You know, jokes, or at least observations, it's born of-

• 8:18Sean Fennessey?

  That's the word, is observations.

• 8:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah. Um, that's also the problem. But it's clearly born of experiences and, and, you know, a life lived making movies, both for Noah Baumbach and Emily Mortimer. But I really don't feel that the two storylines come together very cleanly at all. And I think the second storyline is pretty undercooked and doesn't get enough room to really bring home emotionally what's going on. So-

• 8:54Sean Fennessey?

  The idea of the relationships between these people in the orbit of J. Kelly-

• 8:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 8:59Sean Fennessey?

  And making sense of, okay, so it's interesting that you frame it that way.

• 9:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:05Sean Fennessey?

  I probably feel in the inverse.

• 9:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 9:08Sean Fennessey?

  I think I feel that the family story-

• 9:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 9:11Sean Fennessey?

  While seemingly quite true and an interesting idea to explore, is not as elegantly or interestingly communicated to me. Because I think that that is the side of the story that has a lot of melodrama and sincerity. And that is something that is not Baumbach's calling card.

• 9:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:31Sean Fennessey?

  He's not, he, family dynamics isn't his calling card.

• 9:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 9:34Sean Fennessey?

  But people at an emotional remove with the kind of like the blankness of the J. Kelly character, he's usually, he has much more tenacious characters. He writes really sharp, hard, tough, biting characters. He's the best at that, honestly.

• 9:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 9:49Sean Fennessey?

  When, when his movies are going and two people are yelling at each other, or not yelling, but they want to yell, he's incredible at communicating that kind of angst. J. Kelly, the reason why I like the second half-

• 10:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:01Sean Fennessey?

  And not the first half, is that his blankness- Is what sells the second half, that the movie doesn't conclude because he is still just Jay Kelly at the end of the movie. He's still just the movie star who is ultimately significantly more important, both in a, in a practical, financial, you know, structural way. Right. And also in a social dynamics way where like, there's no way to really change once you have become a big movie star. Yeah. How you exist in the world and how everyone feels around you. And so I find that when characters are talking about him, the movie makes sense. When he's talking to other characters, it makes a little bit less sense because he is this like ineffable thing. The same way we're like, what is he, what even is Tom Cruise? What even is George Clooney?

• 10:45Sean Fennessey?

  Like we, they try to communicate some humanity in their interviews and in their public facing personas, but they've kind of like exited the same existence that we have, which I think is what Bonback is trying to get at, is that there's this like rare class of alien that lives among us. And they make all these sacrifices and they hurt people around them to get where they get. And then they get to the end and no one can really love them in the way that they want to be loved, but everyone feels like they need them because of the system that they sought to succeed. So it's a, it's a very odd framework for a movie by placing the Kelly character right at the center of it. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads.

• 11:28Sean Fennessey?

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• 12:15Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a movie that is more interested in everybody's relationship to him than what's going on inside him.

• 12:23Sean Fennessey?

  With him, yeah.

• 12:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Except then it builds, like, a large part of the architecture of the film is flashbacks, where George Clooney, as contemporary, like, you know, real-time Jake Kelly, is watching flashbacks of his own life with very emotional faces, you know, as if he has like regret and other, and, you know, I don't even think Clooney's bad in this. I think he might be very good. I am very moved by the act of watching George Clooney, the movie star, have feelings on camera, like, that still works. And the movie does sort of try to use it, but it, I agree that it's more effective when it's other people relating to him. The

• 13:08Amanda Dobbins?

  problem then is that there are too many people relating to him, and so pretty much everything is, is very thin. Like, even the, you know, there's a, there's a climactic scene between the, what is the name of Adam Sandler's manager character?

• 13:27Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Ron.

• 13:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Ron, that's right. And Jay. This is like, sort of doing Godfather 2, um, but I was like, this is not the Godfather 2. You guys are just kind of like yelling at each other after doing, you know, I, I don't, I don't understand why you're that mad. There's not a lot of tension. That is, that's the thing.

• 13:46Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with that.

• 13:46Amanda Dobbins?

  There's not a lot of tension. And so, at least in the other half, the tension is kind of, you know, elemental, so you can understand it.

• 13:55Sean Fennessey?

  That, that's a fair point, though, right? Like, the, the loss of connection to a daughter is a much more easily explainable kind of like plot thread than this guy's manager feels that they're not friends? And is that really a crisis?

• 14:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 14:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's tricky because, one, there's like a long tradition of movies like this, right? There's like Bergman's Wild Strawberries is this, Eight and a Half is this, there, you know, it's A Wonderful Life is a version of this, where somebody looks back on their life or what could have been.

• 14:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 14:22Sean Fennessey?

  And then they examine the choices that they've made and they use that flashback structure where you can kind of walk right into the reality of the past. And it's cool to see Bonback do that, it's cool to see him do it with someone like Lena Sandgren, you know, like his, this movie looks very different from all of his other movies, it's much more visually elevated. I think one of the problems of the movie is that the movie very early on is telling you what's happening, which is that there's this encounter between, after the funeral of a close friend of Clooney's who was a mentor and a filmmaker, played by Jim Broadbent. He dies early on in the movie, they go to the funeral, outside the funeral, waiting for them, seemingly on purpose, but though it's never communicated, it's meant to be a random encounter, is an old friend named Tim, who was in acting class and an acting

• 15:07Sean Fennessey?

  buddy of Jay Kelly as a young man. Billy Crudup plays Tim, you know, they make nice, they make chit chat, and then they go to get a drink together. You know, the Jay Kelly character doesn't go into public too often, you can tell he doesn't fraternize too often in ways like this, you can see that because of the energy that Ron is communicating. So then Tim and Jay have this drink, and they're remembering old times and they're talking. Jay is so admiring of Tim's great talents as an actor, even though he never made it as a star, he went on to become a child therapist, he gets Crudup to do this performance of reading the menu.

• 15:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:40Sean Fennessey?

  Right, where he like taps into his method.

• 15:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 15:42Sean Fennessey?

  And Crudup kind of takes over the movie for five minutes, it's a very impressive performance.

• 15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  It got applause at the premiere in Venice.

• 15:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, actors love it, it kind of just take, it lifts the movie for a minute, because it's kind of a shambling movie.

• 15:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:54Sean Fennessey?

  Through the first 15 minutes or so. And then it becomes clear that Tim actually doesn't think back fondly on Jay, in fact, he feels that Jay stole his life, and it becomes a very tense situation, they have this sort of encounter where they're leaving the bar after getting into an argument, and Tim reveals that he has already built a relationship with Jay's older daughter, who we later find out is played by Riley Keo, and he tells Jay that she describes him as an empty vessel.

• 16:26Sean Fennessey?

  And I, I think the movie wants you to think that's true. That J. Kelly is an empty vessel. And he essentially is. It's not that he doesn't have a soul. It's that he has been performing the act of being J. Kelly for so long. Which is to say, you could never make a mistake in public. You always have to be smiling. Whenever a stranger approaches you, you cannot ruin the image you've worked so hard to protect. And that doing this and being this person, while it is the most privileged place in the universe, kills, kills yourself, kills your soul, kills your identity and makes you a nothing. And then the only thing that you really have is this thing that you've been doing for decades. This thing you've been protecting. I don't know if that is a dynamic enough idea to support a movie with tension like you're describing.

• 17:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well.

• 17:11Sean Fennessey?

  Does what I'm saying make sense to you?

• 17:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, it does. And I mean, and like, and it's there in the, this script that it's setting up. You're gonna, that, that sentence also sets up like the therapist that you see later. Like it, in some ways, it is very tightly written, but I, I don't know whether it's the way that it's executed, whether like the, the tone or whether it's bringing in something else emotionally where there is, in addition to those all like pretty sharp, bombak observations about a successful person who is flawed and has failed others

• 17:55Amanda Dobbins?

  and is coming to, um, to, to terms with that or is being faced with that.

• 18:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 18:00Amanda Dobbins?

  In like ugly ways. There's also this lightness and sense of charm to his life, which like is charmed. And it's, I guess it is communicating, okay, like movie stars lived a charmed life. But also there's a sense of wonder to almost everything that happens and everything he runs through that.

• 18:23Amanda Dobbins?

  It like runs counter to that ugliness and sort of undermines it. And so the next thing that happens after the Billy Crudup character says that he's been in touch with Clooney's daughter is that they have a like a quote unquote fight. And the Uber driver is recording it. But and it's very, it is funny, but it's played for slapstick. It's not ugly. It's not, this is a person in crisis. This is, you know, and I guess maybe you're looking at the Uber driver recording and thinking, hmm, that's going to end up on TMZ.

• 18:56Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:57Amanda Dobbins?

  But even in the way it's communicated, it's just, it's kind of farcical.

• 19:01Sean Fennessey?

  Let me ask you a question.

• 19:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 19:02Sean Fennessey?

  If they had swapped Brad Pitt with George Clooney in this movie.

• 19:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:06Sean Fennessey?

  Would it have felt different?

• 19:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably.

• 19:09Sean Fennessey?

  Because Clooney, who can mug effectively, who's a very comic performer, and if in the right hands, like the Coen brothers, for example, can really do what you're describing, that kind of lightness, that farcical quality. And some of the farcical stuff, I think, hurts this movie. I think this movie is at its best when it is, when we're seeing Ron in pain directly.

• 19:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 19:29Sean Fennessey?

  You know, when we're seeing Riley Keo, or the younger daughter, whose name escapes me, the actress, whose name escapes me, who we saw in Asteroid City, when we see them really struggling. And maybe that's just because I, I don't know, Baumbach writes funny stuff, like when, While We're Young is funny. Like, it's not that he doesn't, he doesn't know how to write with that comic sensibility. But Clooney's goofball lane, the movie kind of glides into a little bit where there's a lot of like antique bubbly characters entering his orbit. And when the movie is at its daffiest is when I'm least interested in it.

• 20:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree.

• 20:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. But I do think that there is something, you know what, your mileage is going to vary because if you don't really have empathy for somebody who's living the extraordinarily privileged lifestyle of a Jay Kelly, if you can't get your head around this person's struggle, so to speak.

• 20:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's just going to be a hard movie for you to enjoy. And it is a movie made by somebody who's been working in movies for a very long time, who has access to people like Jay Kelly, whose, whose wife is a extraordinarily famous and successful person. You know, they're coming off of the crazy success of Barbie, Academy Award nominations, a billion dollars at the box office. So these are like very elevated concerns. I don't know, but in the world of like, literature and characterization, don't you want to see people whose lives you've never seen before? Whose lives we don't understand closely explored? I I I I found that stuff pretty interesting. Obviously, I do also love movies and I love the idea of stardom. I'm interested in that idea deeply.

• 20:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you know, but so am I. And I think I do want to see it portrayed and even explored. I would argue that this movie portrays it, but does not explore it. And so you get the funny moments of everyone on the train being like, there's no third class. It's 50 days before Easter. It's a very important holiday and the TMZ. You get some of the the machinations, like the team at work. But then just as quickly it's over and half of the team disappears. And through it all, Jay Kelly, as George Clooney is Clooney, is just kind of walking through it, pretty charmed and unbothered.

• 21:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And and also, he's he's OK. Like, the the punchline to the whole TMZ bar fight video story is that he then does, performs another viral video, uh, interaction with locals. And that's the one that winds up posted and he's portrayed as a hero. And I understand that's supposed to be the contrast between like, that interaction is very weird, but also slightly more nuanced because the the bag thief, you know, has um, has some issues. But so he's like, I'm not really a hero, but I'm a hero.

• 22:21Amanda Dobbins?

  But like, it was all posted on the internet, so it's fine. So there are not even any, you know, repercussions within the idea of movie star. It pulls its punches.

• 22:31Sean Fennessey?

  I maybe, I think that it's just that when you are that person, the preservation of the false self is everything. You know, it's just that is an idea that I understood and I I like liked seeing him explore, especially because the people who are around him have a different relationship to him, especially the kind of professional people at this stage, where the Jay Kelly character is like 60, early 60s. And he's obviously on the downside as a star, but still is enormously famous. Pretty much, probably a one to one with George Clooney in terms of his stature. And the Laura Dern character, who's Liz, his publicist.

• 23:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 23:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's this kind of interesting avatar of like, I'm over it. Like, it ain't what it used to be. You know, she's really kind of burnt out on dealing with the bullshit, dealing with the frivolity and the impulsiveness of a star.

• 23:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 23:21Sean Fennessey?

  And having to navigate that and having logged many years of traipsing around the world, following after this person, not being treated with respect, not getting invited to parties, but having to do all the hard, heavy lifting of managing the person's life. Whereas the Ron character, the Adam Sandler character, well, I don't know, you know, I'm obviously in the bag for Sandler, and I think he's become a very deft, dramatic actor. But I really found his performance heartbreaking in this movie. And I, you know, we've had friends who are managers tell us that's not what a manager does, and we can talk about that. But at least in the world of this movie, that what he sees as his role in life and the lack of recognition of the role that he plays, the status that he has alongside this person he's worked with for so long and fought for for so long, because we know

• 24:04Sean Fennessey?

  in this world, you gotta like yell at people on the phone, fight really hard and make space for the person, that he's just not returned in kind, like nothing, he's never gonna be one quarter of a person, let alone an equal, to somebody like Jay. And I thought Sandler communicated that very well. And of course, that's funny, because as Noah told me when I talked to him, like, Sandler is Jay Kelly, too. Sandler is frankly, Adam Sandler is bigger than George Clooney. Like, he may not have the same iconography in the history of American movies, but he's way more successful in terms of what he's been able to build as a star. And there's something interesting about him as an actor, being forced to tap into that mentality, too, that is very humanizing.

• 24:45Sean Fennessey?

  So I don't know, when you take the big, broad idea, elevated style, and the Sandler performance, I come out liking the movie. It's definitely not perfect.

• 24:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 24:56Sean Fennessey?

  It's definitely got some mess.

• 24:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I want to clarify that I think Adam Sandler is very good in the movie. I don't understand that character at all. Or I do, but again, I think it's like, it's pretty one note. He doesn't get a ton of room to explore what's going on. I think some of the efforts at characterization. Are just frustrating. Like respectfully, they could have served out the father-daughter match before he left, you know? But it's like, and there are some things in that where I really did catch on the specificities. And I'm like, well, no, that doesn't even make sense within this world.

• 25:32Amanda Dobbins?

  So I, I just don't think that the character gets enough room to really pay off that confrontation on the, on the dance floor.

• 25:46Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And it, you know, the ending, the, the very tender moment of them at the very end is, is sweet.

• 25:54Sean Fennessey?

  On the road, yeah.

• 25:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no, I was gonna say after they're on the road, when they're doing each other's makeup and bow tie.

• 26:00Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, and that's very sweet. And that's reconciliation of we weren't really friends and, and now we have each other.

• 26:06Sean Fennessey?

  That's Bill and CR.

• 26:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I know, that's, that's the true love story, you know? But it's sort of like, that's the like Glinda and Elphaba of this movie, you know? I like, and I had that moment three quarters of the way in, I was like, oh, this is the love story. And that's nice, but like, did we earn it? I, you know? I don't know.

• 26:23Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I, I felt like they did, one of the tricky things about it is with the daughters, like what's done is done.

• 26:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:30Sean Fennessey?

  Like he just wasn't there and you just can't fix it.

• 26:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Sean Fennessey?

  And as you know, you're a grudge holder. Like a grudge holder's no. Like if you ain't there, if you, if you didn't fix it at the time, you can't fix it with kids.

• 26:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 26:41Sean Fennessey?

  And that that's gonna haunt him and it's especially gonna haunt them. And the whole movie is kind of a haunting, right? And I think maybe he had like shifted some of that farce a little bit. It could be like a much more, an, an actually more Bergman-esque kind of film where it's like, it is the series of like ghostly encounters with the past instead of something that is trying to balance a kind of fizzy Netflix comedy with some of the more interior exploration. But as is, I, I liked it for the most part. You asked an interesting question here, which is, is this a good George Clooney performance?

• 27:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 27:16Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't really know. There's one moment that rang really false to me that I can tell you about.

• 27:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, go ahead.

• 27:21Sean Fennessey?

  When he's in the bathroom on the train and he's doing the recitation of J. Kelly, Clark Gable.

• 27:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 27:29Sean Fennessey?

  Gary Cooper.

• 27:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:31Sean Fennessey?

  Cary Grant. And he's like situating himself and almost like, he's created a mantra.

• 27:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh-huh.

• 27:35Sean Fennessey?

  To calm himself and also to question himself and figure out where he kind of like, what he is and who he is.

• 27:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 27:42Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I just didn't really understand. Like, I didn't, I just guess I didn't buy that.

• 27:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Everything that was going on with him and the train was absolutely bizarre to me. When he's suddenly making friends with everyone on the train, and I imagine this is written as some sort of, I don't know whether it's like, you know, like whimsical set piece and you've got 45 different people on the train and everyone, and it has one of kind of the key

• 28:08Amanda Dobbins?

  lines of the movie thematically, which is like, when I look at you, I see my whole life. Right? But he's really hamming it up on that, in that train scene. He's like, you all come to Italy! I was like, what are you?

• 28:21Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like it's him performing humanity, which he doesn't really have, which is like, it's a funny idea. It's a funny idea. You're right that it doesn't always click. Like, I can see on the page, I can see it.

• 28:32Amanda Dobbins?

  A hundred percent. Like, you know, and you see the signposts in the, in the dialogue and in what they were going for. And I'm just like, this didn't really land. And I don't know whether that's the Clooney performance. I don't know whether it's that, you know, the, the marrying of tones, because there is, there are a few scenes that are more

• 28:52Amanda Dobbins?

  dark, bombac, family confrontations. There's a great family therapy scene.

• 28:57Sean Fennessey?

  Josh Hamilton is unbelievable in this movie.

• 28:59Amanda Dobbins?

  It's just always so nice when you see Josh Hamilton pop up in any film, but in a bombac film.

• 29:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And then the scene in the woods, also with the Riley Keo character.

• 29:12Sean Fennessey?

  Well, she's got some bracing dialogue.

• 29:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Which Clooney is like running towards, very Michael Clayton-esque also. And he's not, he's not one of our great movie star runners, which is also very funny, and you're reminded of that. But I, you know, I was taken back to the Michael Clayton of it all.

• 29:28Amanda Dobbins?

  And, I mean, that scene, that scene is maybe slightly more broadly written than a typical bombac, you know, than the, than the really gnarly parts of Squid and the Whale. But it's tough, and it's true, and it's, it's direct and straightforward. And I was like, I understand the tension here. I understand the stakes. You know, and when she says to him, like, I'll be like, I'll have a good life, just not with you. I mean, that's, that's some brutal stuff.

• 29:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think there's a handful of lines in this movie that are really, really elegant, clean daggers. Like when Laura Dern's character is getting ready to leave the train because her colleague's cat has eaten a screw, which is a funny detail. Before she leaves, she says to Ron, Sandler's character, we're not to him what he is to us.

• 30:18Sean Fennessey?

  You know, in my life, I've been in the presence of like some extremely famous and successful people. And this is something to think about. Like you, you, people who are incredibly successful, they do kind of exit the realm of normality. And I think the movie has some like really, it does have some observational comedy, but a lot of it is sharp. It's not all, it's not, I'm not trying to say it's, you know, a magical five out of five masterpiece.

• 30:45Amanda Dobbins?

  So isn't that funny is the thing. It's more like chuckle funny as opposed to like, oh, that's, that's clever or huh.

• 30:53Sean Fennessey?

  How do you feel about Noah Baumbach being in like his late style period?

• 30:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't mind sentimental Noah Baumbach. Like I was up here yelling at you about Frances Ha.

• 31:03Sean Fennessey?

  No, I was yelling at you.

• 31:05Amanda Dobbins?

  That was your choice. And you made it. And there is an episode coming out on December 31st.

• 31:11Sean Fennessey?

  Your choice was Lady Bird at all costs.

• 31:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I really, I can't get into this with you, but we love Frances Ha. I'm so angry.

• 31:23Sean Fennessey?

  I actually, well, I'll, I'll save it. I'll save what I was going to say for another episode at another time when you and I are even happier together, when we're doing even better than we are right now.

• 31:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think.

• 31:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm so tired.

• 31:41Sean Fennessey?

  You'll have 11 more episodes this month.

• 31:42Amanda Dobbins?

  And also just like, just like waiting around all day for you to be done with your stupid Zoom meetings.

• 31:47Sean Fennessey?

  I have a lot to do.

• 31:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Get your shit done. Like you actually don't just hang up the Zoom call. You don't have to talk to them.

• 31:52Sean Fennessey?

  No, I'm needed. I'm needed.

• 31:54Amanda Dobbins?

  This is, well, that's why you relate to the Adam Sandler character. They don't need you on the Zoom. Go live your life.

• 32:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I wish, I wish I could. I wish I could. I'm just trying to keep everything on its feet. You wouldn't know about that. You wouldn't know.

• 32:07Amanda Dobbins?

  No, because I'm just, I'm, I'm living my own life. I'm on the train. I'm the younger daughter. Okay?

• 32:13Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 32:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I'm.

• 32:15Sean Fennessey?

  Also, that scene.

• 32:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Gigi and I are going to Sicily to make a movie.

• 32:18Sean Fennessey?

  That's beautiful. I know you guys love cinema. That scene also, I found very effective.

• 32:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:23Sean Fennessey?

  Where he, where she, his younger daughter shares with him after he is, like, basically phone tracked her to France.

• 32:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:30Sean Fennessey?

  That, um, she wants to be an actress.

• 32:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 32:33Sean Fennessey?

  That even though she's very gifted in science and is very intelligent, that she wants to pursue a life in the arts. And Clooney is.

• 32:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Even though she's very intelligent, she wants to pursue a life.

• 32:43Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 32:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Come on.

• 32:45Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's like she has options. It's that she has options and that her father's done this and she, she doesn't have to do this, but she has a call.

• 32:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 32:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Or, or, because she says in that scene, I know you always thought Jessica was the real actor, but I can do it too. So she's.

• 32:59Sean Fennessey?

  Trying to prove something to him. Yeah. Yeah, that's possible too. I mean, I'm sure it's a combination of both, right? But, um, his reaction, that, to me, that this is Clooney's best part, like, performance in the film.

• 33:09Amanda Dobbins?

  He's doing great work in that scene.

• 33:10Sean Fennessey?

  That scene is really, really strong to me. And his, his kind of like sadness and like immediately trying to encourage her away from it.

• 33:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:19Sean Fennessey?

  And like that forces a kind of self-recognition about what it has cost him to do this and the absence in her life. And that kind of like very funny matter-of-fact style that daughters and fathers sometimes have. Literally, we've just seen this like five times this year in movies, but it's a really, another really good example of that sort of thing. I don't know. This movie's pretty interesting.

• 33:40Amanda Dobbins?

  It has some, it has some good scenes. That's a good scene. He's very good in the therapy scene.

• 33:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 33:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, he's very good in that scene in the woods. And then I, I think the ending, at least the cinema tribute ending.

• 33:54Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about it because, so the film ends and spoilers for Jay Kelly, I mean, it's been on Netflix for five days and I, I think a lot of people have seen it if they. Really want to. But this has been, this is, this hit in every review when the film came out. The film ends dramatically with this tribute to Jay Kelly, which his character has been kind of moving towards in Italy throughout the entirety of the film. And finally, the film ends on him watching his life in the movies on screen.

• 34:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 34:21Sean Fennessey?

  And then cutting back to his reaction to watching his life in the movies. Now, I think a lot of people really like this. And it sounds like you really liked it.

• 34:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I did.

• 34:29Sean Fennessey?

  I was a little bit more mixed on it. Can I tell you why?

• 34:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 34:32Sean Fennessey?

  It was kind of a reminder of the mixed nature of George Clooney's career.

• 34:35Amanda Dobbins?

  But I thought that was a clever part of that. Like Jay Kelly is not Brad Pitt.

• 34:39Sean Fennessey?

  I know it knows that, but it kind of like disassembled the idea for, or maybe, maybe it elevated it. Maybe it made it smarter.

• 34:46Amanda Dobbins?

  This is not like, you know, an honorary Oscar. This is a made up award in Tuscany where they actually refashion a second glass sculptural popcorn box.

• 34:57Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right.

• 34:58Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's not, I don't think it's supposed to be a tribute to the like true heights of cinema.

• 35:04Sean Fennessey?

  It's very funny to see clips from The Peacemaker and Leatherheads and the tribute reel.

• 35:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I agree.

• 35:11Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm sure that's knowing on Bombak's part. You know, there's something funny about it not just being, you know, Traffic and Siriana and the Ocean's films. And the, you know, the films he's really well known for, but it, and maybe that is the idea. The idea is that it was like, and for what? For five iconic movies.

• 35:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 35:30Sean Fennessey?

  Five movies people really like, five movies that are cool, five movies that bombed, and five movies you've forgotten about. And then that's your life.

• 35:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:39Sean Fennessey?

  And I guess that's interesting. I don't, I'm not sure if it quite like, it didn't hit us, hit home as hard for me personally.

• 35:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I mean, it, to me, it was an illustration of the, like, when I look at you, if I see, I see my life because you remember all of those points. And it's, you know, it's an argument against the film Jay Kelly in a lot of ways that that just, you could have just shown that montage and I was like, oh, great. I get it, you know, like sort of.

• 36:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 36:09Amanda Dobbins?

  And I was just thinking about the, the ending of Babylon, which is like, you know, maybe a similar, like, oh.

• 36:14Sean Fennessey?

  Also shot by Lena Sengren.

• 36:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, okay, like, I get it. But I did find myself emotionally connected to that more than I was at any other point in the film.

• 36:28Sean Fennessey?

  Rare W for montages from you. Love to hear it.

• 36:30Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think Clooney responding to it is, he's good in that moment and it's making me feel what I'm supposed to feel. But I'm not thinking about his like, relationship with Ron, or even his daughters in that moment. I guess I'm thinking about...

• 36:47Sean Fennessey?

  That's the whole thing, though.

• 36:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I know.

• 36:48Sean Fennessey?

  This is an exercise in narcissism this whole career.

• 36:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but then, it cuts to what is finally playing in his tribute reel and what sets up the last line, which, you know, is good writing. Noah Baumbach and Emily Morner are good at writing, is like, an imagination, like, an imagined memory or one last flashback of his daughters putting on the plays that they both reference in the, earlier in the film. And, listen, Yasi Salak saw this before me and pointed out the inconsistency, but it is really hard to get past that they are, they are 18 years apart in age, and that's

• 37:34Amanda Dobbins?

  said multiple times. Their ages are noted, like, specifically in the film multiple times, because he even says, "I've been doing this for 35 years," and she says, "I'm 34 and a half." You know, it's like, it's all built in. But then they're suddenly on screen in the most emotional moment, doing this play together, and they're the exact same age. I don't, I don't understand. So then I got taken out of that moment, too.

• 37:57Sean Fennessey?

  It's messy.

• 37:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So I guess just none of the flights of fancy, and it worked for me.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Does the line reading connect for you at all, Sean? Because when I was watching it, I wasn't overwhelmed emotionally and by any stretch with the actual montage, but when Clooney actually reads the line, it kind of hit me like a truck.

• 38:14Sean Fennessey?

  Honestly, no. And there are other moments in the movie that do hit me. Um, but for whatever reason, that part didn't. I think it proved its point, but didn't move me. I was much more moved by Ron. I, I, I, I thought that that whole discursive, like discursive journey into this guy who's like, I feel like I'm doing the right thing and I feel like I'm helping and making something successful and we're doing it together.

• 38:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:40Sean Fennessey?

  It's just like, I've not really seen that character before.

• 38:42Amanda Dobbins?

  It's true.

• 38:43Sean Fennessey?

  And I, I'm, I'm, I just really liked Sandler's performance. And I think that the J. Kelly thing is like, what, if you like the movie or don't like the movie, it's like, it'll be either a success of the design or a failure of the design where it's like, this is a guy who's not really about anything. He's just about himself. And that to do this well, you kind of have to be about, all about yourself at all costs. Doesn't make you not a human being, but it makes you, I think, a little bit less of an engaged person. And he knows it. You know, like, there's an interesting moment early in the movie where he, I guess, I don't, I can't, I don't even know if this is happening in real time or if it's a flashback as I think back on it. But when he's meeting with Peter in his kitchen.

• 39:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Flashback.

• 39:20Sean Fennessey?

  And Peter has come to him and he said he wants him to come do his last movie. He wants to do two movies in a row before, you know, he wants to get back on track. This is the man who's giving him his big break. And Clooney is just like, I can't do it.

• 39:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:32Sean Fennessey?

  I can't do it.

• 39:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Pickles don't expire.

• 39:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 39:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Another great piece of writing. It's great, I mean, it's great writing.

• 39:37Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of great lines in the movie.

• 39:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:38Sean Fennessey?

  Um, he knows when he's saying no to Peter, that he thinks he's doing like the responsible thing.

• 39:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:46Sean Fennessey?

  He's like, I'm protecting my brand. I'm protecting my.

• 39:49Amanda Dobbins?

  He just, he's like, I can't do it. It's not, you know, he's, he's pretty dismissive and puts the, like, the, the football arm out like very quickly.

• 39:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, which is something that, we just saw another version of this where Stellan Skarsgård's character in Sentimental Value, and he goes back to talk with his former cinematographer. You know, and, and, and Sentimental Value and this movie are very much in conversation with each other, or at least incidentally in conversation with each other. Um, you know, when he goes back and he thinks he's gonna work with this longtime cinematographer, but in watching him move around his own apartment realizes that he's gotten old.

• 40:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 40:24Sean Fennessey?

  And he's moving more slowly and that he is himself like this, this reminder of their age together and what they've done together. And I like both of those scenes in both of those movies, but. Stellan Skarsgård's character does get to redeem himself. And I'm not sure that Jay Kelly like redeems himself at all. And I don't know that you have to do that. But if you're not going to redeem the character, I think the movie needs to be a little bit darker and meaner. You know what I mean?

• 40:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree. I mean, that is the thing where it like, it wants to be mean about this person, but then it has Alba Rohracker coming in to talk about like, you know, the power of Italy. And I, by the way, I thought she was very funny and great in this.

• 41:06Sean Fennessey?

  She got a big, big applause in Telluride as well.

• 41:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I'm like very amused by it, but it has all of these like silly.

• 41:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's like zany Fellini homage in the middle of an otherwise like sad movie about a depressed 62 year old multimillionaire.

• 41:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:22Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, cool. Jay Kelly, Academy Awards? Seems like no.

• 41:25Amanda Dobbins?

  It's pretty weird.

• 41:28Sean Fennessey?

  Seems like, I mean, you know, obviously the film was not nominated for best. I assume it was slotted into comedy or musical in the Golden Globes.

• 41:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I would assume.

• 41:37Sean Fennessey?

  And did not make it there.

• 41:39Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 41:40Sean Fennessey?

  Clooney did get nominated.

• 41:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, as did Sandler.

• 41:42Sean Fennessey?

  And Sandler. I don't think Clooney is competitive in best actor. Could be wrong about that because he is a huge star and is an avatar of Hollywood greatness, but the movie seems to have had a mixed reception thus far.

• 41:56Amanda Dobbins?

  He was on the New Heights podcast, so.

• 41:59Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 42:01Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely. For sure, listen to that.

• 42:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I just watched him get, do a clip about how he never fights with his wife. And then Travis Kelce confirms that he also doesn't fight with Taylor Swift.

• 42:13Sean Fennessey?

  How nice.

• 42:13Amanda Dobbins?

  How believable.

• 42:14Sean Fennessey?

  That's great.

• 42:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm sure these guys are really happy.

• 42:22Sean Fennessey?

  Sandler.

• 42:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:25Sean Fennessey?

  Now.

• 42:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I love Adam Sandler.

• 42:26Sean Fennessey?

  Sandler is running into the one battle buzzsaw.

• 42:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:30Sean Fennessey?

  In terms of the awards race. I think after he was not nominated for Uncut Gems, there became this like newfound awareness. I remember he gave that incredible independent film awards, Spirit Awards speech. And, you know, he was in Hustle and people really liked Hustle and, um, obviously he's had a tremendous number of huge comedy hits, but also in recent years, like some dramatic performances that people, that have gotten good notices.

• 42:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:54Sean Fennessey?

  And so I definitely thought in like January, when we were talking about the most anticipated movies of the year, I was like, this just kind of seems like it's the Sandler Oscar written all over it.

• 43:03Amanda Dobbins?

  We also thought that this was gonna be, you know, Bonback finally makes his movie about Hollywood, like Netflix gives the people what they want.

• 43:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 43:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, you know, 2025 happened.

• 43:13Sean Fennessey?

  It did, it sure did. Um, and then Frankenstein took its spot.

• 43:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Frankenstein or New Velveaux?

• 43:19Sean Fennessey?

  Well, for now.

• 43:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, New Velveaux is not gonna be nominated.

• 43:21Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, Train Dreams is the movie that has probably slid into the Jay Kelly spot. Um, that's not, it's not done with. We got a long time to talk about what's gonna happen over the next couple of months, but, um, I'm, I'm curious about the Sandler thing. I do think he will be nominated for an Academy Award.

• 43:33Amanda Dobbins?

  You do?

• 43:34Sean Fennessey?

  I do, I do. I don't think he will win, um, because there's two one battle performers in there. Stellan Skarsgård is in there, Paul Meskell is in there. There's a number of strong competitive names in the mix. Um, but I don't know, we'll see, we'll see what he does. He's already done an event with Timothy Chalamet.

• 43:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 43:52Sean Fennessey?

  You know, probably more events to come. Sandler is very charming in these atmospheres. I've done stuff like this with him. I did a couple of things with him during Uncut Gems and he's just like magic. Like if there's just like a dead air moment, he's like, I got this. You know, he just is really, really good at campaigning and meeting people.

• 44:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Was it last year's Oscars that he also saved? Yeah, I think, not saved, but he was one of the major highlights, just in the audience being like, Chalamet!

• 44:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, yes.

• 44:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Wherever he goes.

• 44:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. So, his career, do you remember the first time that you saw him?

• 44:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Absolutely. Uh, Hanukkah song.

• 44:26Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah, okay. The video or on SNL or?

• 44:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, probably, well, I think it's probably the first time I heard him.

• 44:33Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Because you better believe that played Hollywood radio.

• 44:37Sean Fennessey?

  On the radio.

• 44:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. But then I must have gotten like-

• 44:39Sean Fennessey?

  Huge Z100 hit.

• 44:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but I must have gotten like the long cut because like, drink your gin and tonic and smoke your marijuana, cause you know, engraved in my head.

• 44:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. That was on the second album. That was not on the first album, right? First albums, you're all gonna, they're all gonna laugh at you. Which I probably listened to 48,000 times.

• 45:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:02Sean Fennessey?

  So, I-

• 45:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Tom Cruise isn't, but I heard his agent is.

• 45:12Sean Fennessey?

  He was on Remote Control on MTV in the 80s.

• 45:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:15Sean Fennessey?

  From 87 to 90. I definitely watched Remote Control.

• 45:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:19Sean Fennessey?

  He was like stud boy. He was like the Vanna White of that show.

• 45:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:22Sean Fennessey?

  In some way, which is like a kind of trivia game show on MTV. I'm sure I saw him. I didn't really clock him on that show. Did watch a lot of MTV.

• 45:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:30Sean Fennessey?

  From like 1987 through 1999. SNL, he's on SNL from 1990 to 1995.

• 45:40Sean Fennessey?

  At the time, this was a hugely derided cast that has now gone on to be like some of the most successful people in Hollywood. This is like the tail end of the Mike Myers, Dana Carver era. And then you've got Chris Rock, Chris Farley, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Adam Sandler. You know, all of his homies, all of the people that he has still kind of kept in the mix.

• 46:03Sean Fennessey?

  He debuts all of his singing gags on the show at that time. And then uses that show after he's fired off the show in 1995. Him and Chris Farley were all fired off of Saturday Night Live. That was the Saturday Night Dead New York Magazine cover.

• 46:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, sure.

• 46:20Sean Fennessey?

  Starts putting out music and starts making movies. 95, I mean, let's, is there anything we want to say about what he is before we start going through the Hall of Fame? I mean, I was, I was speaking through like some of his success. I think it's a little bit maybe.

• 46:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Undersung?

• 46:34Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, well, just like in terms of pure box office power.

• 46:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:37Sean Fennessey?

  We've forgotten about it because he's been making Netflix movies for the last 10 years. You know, the, the Western that he made, what is it called? Like the, shoot.

• 46:48Sean Fennessey?

  The, The Ridiculous Six was 2015.

• 46:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:51Sean Fennessey?

  And that was the start of this big relationship with Netflix.

• 46:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:54Sean Fennessey?

  But before that, he had 21 movies that have made more than a hundred million dollars at the worldwide box office. So that's just 21 movies, basically like in the late 90s and 2000s, all the way up to 2015.

• 47:09Sean Fennessey?

  There's like very few actors who can say that they are that present in movies. Now, I don't even really like most of those movies. So I'm not trying to say that that equates to quality.

• 47:16Amanda Dobbins?

  But the ones that you do like.

• 47:18Sean Fennessey?

  Really like.

• 47:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 47:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And he has a presence outside of, I mean, he can be in the worst movie and just make his voice sound a certain way.

• 47:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 47:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And he can make, yeah.

• 47:30Sean Fennessey?

  Literally make his voice sound a certain way.

• 47:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, he is like one of our great vocalists, both like singing, but in terms of what he can do with his voice to make you laugh.

• 47:36Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:37Amanda Dobbins?

  That is singular, like, among living people? I would say to our generation, at least, because we are so trained on the 90s of just him doing like, "Hey!", you know? And you just, it's Pavlovian, just to laugh.

• 47:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I should have thought about how I could do this entire pod in his voice. And a sheba-de-doo. So he's like, obviously, in this big tradition of like, smart dumb stars, right? Where every character he plays is kind of an idiot, but you're really rooting for him. There's, you know, Buster Keaton, Jerry Lewis, Steve Martin, like, over and over again. This is like a model for building an American movie star.

• 48:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:13Sean Fennessey?

  And I think he's very, kind of underestimated, because he's made so many super silly movies. And the movies at the beginning of his career just got really bad critical notices. But if you were 13 when those movies came out, they were the best movies of all time. And they're still among my favorite movies of all time.

• 48:29Amanda Dobbins?

  They're absolutely going into the Hall of Fame.

• 48:31Sean Fennessey?

  No, I know. I'm not, frankly, we're not, we wouldn't even debate it if you said no. I would still overrule you on those facts. I think the point is, though, is like, every generation has their person.

• 48:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:41Sean Fennessey?

  Where, I wonder if a 14-year-old watched Billy Madison right now, would they like it as much as I liked it as a kid? Maybe they would.

• 48:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Jack, Billy Madison, thumbs up, thumbs down?

• 48:48Speaker 02

  Big thumbs up.

• 48:49Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that's nice to hear.

• 48:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:52Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if that will continue to be true for him, but at the time, him and Jim Carrey were like gods to me. They were like gods to me. They were the funniest people in the universe. And his energy was very different from Jim Carrey's. Jim Carrey was manic.

• 49:08Sean Fennessey?

  Adam Sandler was angry. And there's a difference. Adam Sandler could be silly, Jim Carrey could be silly. You know, they both could be outrageous. But one was crazy and one was mad. And they were like an interesting pairing. Now, those two guys specifically were like, kind of, sort of replaced by a lot of guys who were inspired by those two guys, with the whole Aptovian slash Will Ferrell, Adam McKay world that came in in the 2000s, but...

• 49:36Sean Fennessey?

  I would suggest that his comedy in the 90s, his comedy movies are actually underrated now?

• 49:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably, though many of them have been remade and or sequels to. You know, we are leading the reappraisal, the reclaiming of the high arts of comedy. And I did also, in that Timothy Chalamet, Adam Sandler appearance, I did watch Timothy Chalamet doing his like dream big greatness is real speech about Big Daddy. So like, it's, I think that, I think that we are taking it seriously.

• 50:12Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that, that raises one other thing that Sandler had, that Jim Carrey did not really have, which was that Sandler was kind of a heartthrob, you know, that he could very credibly be the romantic lead opposite Drew Barrymore or Jennifer Aniston in a movie.

• 50:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 50:25Sean Fennessey?

  And he did it over and over again. You can make the case that those are actually his much more successful movies. It's not his super silly boy comedies. It's, you know, Your 50 First Dates, that those are the movies that he may even be remembered for, you know, Just Go With It, you know, like those movies, which I don't, I don't like as much, but like when, when The Wedding Singer happened, that's the movie that changed his career, you know, that really changed the trajectory of what kind of a star he could be. So he's just, it's just one of my faves.

• 50:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, he's a national treasure.

• 50:56Sean Fennessey?

  He is a national treasure. I think he, and I, and I, he's another one who, we were talking about this with Leo this year, like, I really appreciate that he's, wants to work with the Safdies and wants to, you know, he's made some movies recently that don't work, like, like Spaceman, the Johann Renk movie that was on Netflix a couple of years ago, that like, I didn't really care for at all, and I don't think we talked about on the show, but I like that he tried it. You know, I like that he used his powers to do something interesting, that he found interesting, so.

• 51:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I also like that he wants to work with his friends in beautiful places around the world. That's a, it's a great life philosophy.

• 51:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's why we're moving this show to Tulum.

• 51:35Amanda Dobbins?

  No, we can't, no, they don't even.

• 51:36Sean Fennessey?

  Excited, Jack?

• 51:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's, Tulum's done, no.

• 51:39Sean Fennessey?

  Where are we going?

• 51:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Hawaii.

• 51:41Sean Fennessey?

  Hawaii?

• 51:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:42Sean Fennessey?

  Where, where? Okay, now we're talking.

• 51:44Amanda Dobbins?

  There we go.

• 51:45Sean Fennessey?

  Which island?

• 51:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Tulum, you can't even flush the toilet paper, they maxed out the grid, they haven't, they're not respecting the people.

• 51:51Sean Fennessey?

  They maxed out the grid?

• 51:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, and they, the, the people really over. Ran and ruined Tulum, yes.

• 51:58Sean Fennessey?

  The people, the, the American people?

• 52:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, primarily, yeah. I mean, I think there's sort of like an international glitterati aspect to it. You know, the, the, the yoga, the yogi influencers of the world.

• 52:08Sean Fennessey?

  I've never been to Tulum. I've not seen it.

• 52:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I went once and then we didn't understand that it was on a different time zone than Cancun. So we almost missed our flight back and that was one of the worst fights that my husband and I have ever had. But we're here.

• 52:20Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about it. Let's talk more like what was said.

• 52:24Sean Fennessey?

  Get into it. Um, you want to do the Hall of Fame? Is there anything else you want to say about Sandler?

• 52:30Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think we can, we can do it during the, during the Hall of Fame.

• 52:34Sean Fennessey?

  Will this be easy?

• 52:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think it will be challenging. Like, I don't think there will be like a knife fight.

• 52:40Sean Fennessey?

  I hope not. Did you know what his five most successful movies are at the box office?

• 52:45Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I didn't know that he was even. Well, no, I looked at it and I was like, what, what is Hotel Transylvania?

• 52:51Sean Fennessey?

  Well, his top three movies at the box office are Hotel Transylvania 3, Hotel Transylvania 2, and Hotel Transylvania. I'm glad you asked. I just watched Hotel Transylvania, the first installment.

• 52:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 52:59Sean Fennessey?

  For the first time with my daughter.

• 53:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 53:01Sean Fennessey?

  And it's a movie about a family of monsters that owns a hotel. He plays Dracula.

• 53:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 53:09Sean Fennessey?

  Dracula has a complicated relationship with his daughter, Mavis.

• 53:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Ah, um, how did you feel, um, Adam Sandler's interpretation of Dracula, but worked in the, in the context?

• 53:20Sean Fennessey?

  One note, but effective.

• 53:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, yeah. So would it go in your-

• 53:23Sean Fennessey?

  I want to suck your blood.

• 53:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Would it go in the Dracula Hall of Fame after the fact?

• 53:29Sean Fennessey?

  Who's Dracula Hall?

• 53:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yours, that you and Rob Mahoney made for like-

• 53:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Hotel Transylvania didn't come up.

• 53:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 53:35Sean Fennessey?

  Should we call Rob?

• 53:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:37Sean Fennessey?

  Make an addendum. Uh, the other, the next two films in his box office list are Grown Ups and Grown Ups 2.

• 53:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 53:43Sean Fennessey?

  So this is a man who's making his own IP. Spinoffs and sequels galore.

• 53:48Amanda Dobbins?

  So the poster for Grown Ups is Adam Sandler and a bunch of men going on a tube down a water slide at a water park.

• 53:54Sean Fennessey?

  I've seen it. I've seen the film.

• 53:56Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no. But you said on the Avatar podcast that you've never been like tube, you've been tubing down a river, but you've never been tubing behind a boat.

• 54:04Sean Fennessey?

  Correct, but I have been tubing at a water park.

• 54:06Amanda Dobbins?

  You have?

• 54:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, many times.

• 54:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I just wanted to get the, this on the record.

• 54:10Sean Fennessey?

  When I was growing up, there was a water park on Long Island called Splish Splash.

• 54:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 54:15Sean Fennessey?

  Been to Splish Splash a great many times. It's a miracle I did not contract a disease there.

• 54:21Amanda Dobbins?

  That is actually why I was very infrequently allowed at a Splish Splash. My parents read a little too many, like, consumer.

• 54:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it seemed like a very dangerous experience. There was an incredible slide, though, called Shotgun Falls. Man, had some good times on that slide. Anyway, moving on. Uh, Adam Sandler.

• 54:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:40Sean Fennessey?

  First film Going Overboard. He has a small role in the movie. He plays a character named Shekki Moskowitz. That's not going in. He also has a small role in the Bobcat Goldthwait movie Shakes the Clown. He plays Dink the Clown. Obviously not going in. 1993 Coneheads. Did you get the Coneheads 4K from Kino Lorber?

• 55:01Sean Fennessey?

  Cause they actually put one out.

• 55:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I have to start doing like reaction shots for Alex Ross Perry for like his supercut or whatever. You know, I think he wants visuals as well as me just being like, no, I didn't. Did you get it, Sean?

• 55:13Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I didn't get it, but you know what? I'd like to own it. This is a movie that I watch on HBO all the time. It's obviously a like 14, 18 years later movie adaptation of two very famous characters that Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin played on Saturday Night Live. Now, one thing I want to note about this movie, I've talked about this, this woman before because we did a Dazed and Confused podcast, and Michelle Burke, who was in Dazed and Confused, and stars as the daughter of the Conehead. She's Connie Conehead. I want to say she's Adam, is Adam Sandler her love interest in the movie? I can't remember for sure. He might be. Shel Burke had, she had the juice.

• 55:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:52Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know where she is. I hope she's doing well.

• 55:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 55:55Sean Fennessey?

  She had the juice.

• 55:58Amanda Dobbins?

  It's important to identify this and, you know, honor people's contributions to your childhood.

• 56:03Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 56:03Amanda Dobbins?

  So that's beautiful.

• 56:04Sean Fennessey?

  This film is red. It's not going in.

• 56:06Amanda Dobbins?

  All right. I'm okay with that.

• 56:07Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen Airheads?

• 56:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Not in at least 20 years. I didn't revisit it for this.

• 56:12Sean Fennessey?

  Now, I did love it. I did love it.

• 56:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:15Sean Fennessey?

  This is a comedy about a rock band that takes a radio station hostage so that they will play their music on the radio. This is at a time when something called rock music was popular.

• 56:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 56:26Sean Fennessey?

  Perhaps you've heard of it. Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi.

• 56:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:30Sean Fennessey?

  And Adam Sandler is the band.

• 56:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 56:32Sean Fennessey?

  Joe Montegna is the very famous disc jockey who's taken hostage.

• 56:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Incredibly deeply 90s experience.

• 56:37Sean Fennessey?

  Super 90s movie. I loved it in the 90s. Is it good? I can't recall.

• 56:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 56:43Sean Fennessey?

  But I have warm feelings about it. Sandler, very funny as Pip. I'm not saying it's going in. I don't think it is.

• 56:48Amanda Dobbins?

  You want to do a yellow? That's fine.

• 56:49Sean Fennessey?

  Are you cool with that?

• 56:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm fine with that.

• 56:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Now the work begins.

• 56:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 56:54Sean Fennessey?

  1994 Mixed Nuts.

• 56:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:57Sean Fennessey?

  What happened here?

• 56:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I really don't know.

• 56:59Sean Fennessey?

  Who made this movie?

• 57:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Nora Ephron did, and it's an absolute disaster. It's like, speaking of just tones that completely do not match what's going on.

• 57:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 57:08Amanda Dobbins?

  They just, it got away from them, you know? Sometimes that happens. You just don't got it, and I guess you keep coming to work every day.

• 57:14Sean Fennessey?

  Is Jay Kelly Noah Baumbach's Mixed Nuts?

• 57:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know if that.

• 57:19Sean Fennessey?

  It's not that bad.

• 57:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Disaster. No, it's not.

• 57:20Sean Fennessey?

  This is a Christmas movie, Mixed Nuts.

• 57:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:22Sean Fennessey?

  And Sandler is like a pretty prominent role in the movie.

• 57:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it's just none of it makes any sense. And it's kind of like it's an ensemble.

• 57:28Sean Fennessey?

  It is. His part is not that big.

• 57:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I have one more thing to nominate in 1994.

• 57:33Sean Fennessey?

  Fire away.

• 57:34Amanda Dobbins?

  That is when the Hanukkah song is first performed.

• 57:36Sean Fennessey?

  So do you want to be putting these extratextual, non-film things in?

• 57:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I want to be putting either the Hanukkah song or the album, which is the second studio album. The album is released in 1996. What the hell happened to me? I would do Hanukkah song standalone.

• 57:53Sean Fennessey?

  Let's put it on the list and keep talking.

• 57:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 57:55Sean Fennessey?

  Because if I were putting things from the albums on, Tollbooth Willie on They're All Gonna Laugh At You.

• 58:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:03Sean Fennessey?

  Is a banger.

• 58:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Hanukkah is the festival of lights.

• 58:06Sean Fennessey?

  What about the Thanksgiving song? Did that not hit with you?

• 58:08Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 58:09Sean Fennessey?

  That was the first one.

• 58:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you know how many times I've heard the Hanukkah song? At least a thousand times.

• 58:13Sean Fennessey?

  I think the Thanksgiving song is now overlooked.

• 58:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Drink your gin and tonic and smoke your marijuana.

• 58:18Sean Fennessey?

  You already did that part.

• 58:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, but now I'm singing it.

• 58:22Sean Fennessey?

  That's a breakup.

• 58:25Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, we'll put it on for now.

• 58:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Well, I mean, you can yell it if you want.

• 58:30Sean Fennessey?

  Jack, 1994, The Hanukkah Song. Green. 1995, Billy Madison.

• 58:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Incredibly green.

• 58:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. What are the best 90s movie comedies?

• 58:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Tommy Boy.

• 58:50Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Those are like the boy comedies. Do you want to?

• 58:54Sean Fennessey?

  Wayne's World?

• 58:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, though even that is like Bridge to Gen X, you know?

• 58:59Sean Fennessey?

  Not saying like-

• 58:59Amanda Dobbins?

  It was like handed down to us.

• 59:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 59:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And we were like, this is cool.

• 59:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And let's see.

• 59:08Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not talking, I mean, you know, like Clueless.

• 59:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Wait, I mean, that's what I was gonna say. It's a comedy, it's 95.

• 59:14Sean Fennessey?

  Friday.

• 59:15Amanda Dobbins?

  But you're just talking about, so Dumb and Dumber is another one.

• 59:18Sean Fennessey?

  Dumb and Dumber, absolutely. Office Space.

• 59:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, though that's 99 and like edging towards, hey, we're all grown up now. We're not being like purely stupid. If you just want to be stupid.

• 59:29Sean Fennessey?

  Is this our draft for February?

• 59:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Just stupid holiday-

• 59:33Sean Fennessey?

  No, 90s comedies.

• 59:34Amanda Dobbins?

  90s comedies? I don't know, has Chris seen enough? Oh.

• 59:38Sean Fennessey?

  You can start now. He's got three months to start checking in. That could be, that could be, that's an interesting idea.

• 59:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 59:45Sean Fennessey?

  Billy Madison, of course, is a movie about a, um, the heir to a great fortune who needs to go back to school, starting in first grade, and re-acquire his education one week at a time. This is a super normal movie. Very clear presence about a 26-year-old man going to 4th grade.

• 1:00:07Sean Fennessey?

  It's fucking incredible. It's so funny. It's really like, you know, there was just recently a documentary about James Downey, the SNL writer, and he of course features in this film as the principal slash like trivia master and then fateful scene opposite Bradley Whitford in this movie. And I was reminded all over again that there's like 10 or 12 moments of extremely special shit here. So yes, this movie is green.

• 1:00:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:00:30Sean Fennessey?

  In 1996, Happy Gilmore.

• 1:00:31Amanda Dobbins?

  You gotta.

• 1:00:32Sean Fennessey?

  We're in a Happy Gilmore year. Happy Gilmore 2, Craig Horbeck's favorite movie of 2025. A film that lives on and saw the future in more ways than one about the future of golf. It's definitely going in. This one two punch, obviously big deal for Sandler and, you know, both neither of these movies were like massive box office sensations, but they were huge video store and VHS movies.

• 1:00:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:00:54Sean Fennessey?

  And they were watched over and over again in dorm rooms and over and over again, you know, rented from video stores and they kind of set him on his way. Now 1996 Bulletproof.

• 1:01:05Sean Fennessey?

  So this is probably the first time I learned the heartbreak of a movie not living up to my expectations.

• 1:01:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, this was it.

• 1:01:14Sean Fennessey?

  I think, I think so.

• 1:01:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Everything was gravy before.

• 1:01:16Sean Fennessey?

  I think so. Well, I was 13.

• 1:01:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:01:19Sean Fennessey?

  13 turning 14.

• 1:01:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Forrest Gump was everything you wanted it to be.

• 1:01:22Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I was 12 when that came out. What the fuck did I know? I was like, holy shit. The 70s, who knew?

• 1:01:29Sean Fennessey?

  Bulletproof, directed by Ernest Dickerson, starring Damon Wayans and Adam Sandler as, I guess, like an FBI agent and a criminal who are stuck together. It's kind of like a cheapo Midnight Run knockoff.

• 1:01:42Sean Fennessey?

  And Ernest Dickerson coming off of Juice, one of my favorite movies of all time, and Sandler and Wayans being two of the funniest people in the world. You know, Wayans had recently come off of In Living Color and bless you.

• 1:01:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you.

• 1:01:54Sean Fennessey?

  And this movie's not funny. It doesn't really work.

• 1:01:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know if I've seen it.

• 1:01:59Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, it's not going in.

• 1:02:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:01Sean Fennessey?

  1998, The Wedding Singer.

• 1:02:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Got to.

• 1:02:03Sean Fennessey?

  Auto green.

• 1:02:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Auto green.

• 1:02:05Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's still really good. I did go back and look at it a little bit. And, you know, like all of these movies, these films don't have the best directors of all time. You know, it's a lot of people that are very comfortable with Sandler's mode of working and a lot of his friends, as you said before, not just in front of the camera, but behind the camera. And they're not Bergman-esque in their work.

• 1:02:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:02:26Sean Fennessey?

  So there's like some rickety stuff going on in terms of the setting and the mood of the movie.

• 1:02:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, this movie has, it should absolutely go in. And it's very funny, but this movie has always been a little annoying to me in that when you would ask men, oh, what's your favorite rom com? They'd always be like, oh, The Wedding Singer. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, because Adam Sandler is in it, you know? And you haven't seen another one. So it's important, it's important to bridge it.

• 1:02:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the romantic stuff does work, though, between him and Drew Barrymore. They have actual chemistry. You want to see them together.

• 1:02:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:02:55Sean Fennessey?

  It does ultimately come together, you know, but your point is well taken. 1998, Dirty Work is a small role of Satan in this Norm MacDonald comedy. This is one of my favorite movies ever. We did this movie on the Rewatchables, me and Bill. This is like a sick pod where me and Bill are just like quoting jokes from the movie. But RIP Norm MacDonald, who I love, who was a close friend of Sandler's. It's obviously not going in, but it's a very good cameo performance. 1998's The Waterboy. Now, this was an interesting confrontation with my taste because I don't like this movie at all. I don't think it's funny.

• 1:03:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:03:25Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not really like a hardcore down south college football person.

• 1:03:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:29Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really, especially at this time, I didn't know that culture at all, being from New York. The voice didn't work, the accent, but this movie is a massive hit.

• 1:03:41Amanda Dobbins?

  It's huge.

• 1:03:41Sean Fennessey?

  And people love it, but I was on the outside on this one.

• 1:03:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:03:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:03:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And I was living in the South as a... Among college football fans, at least. Um, I'm a reformed college football fan. So this was a big, big deal. I was very aware of it. I don't, it's not one of my favorites either, but culturally, I think we have to at least yellow it.

• 1:04:02Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you. There's definitely a case for going in just in terms of the importance in his career. Cause this is when he becomes like a big time movie star. My feeling about it was always like, he just did Happy Gilmore. It's like, we did a sports comedy two years ago about a guy with incredible skill who's kind of an idiot. Like, it just felt very repetitive and less.

• 1:04:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, we all know that Happy Gilmore is the one, but it did make a lot more, you know?

• 1:04:26Sean Fennessey?

  It just, he had gotten to a point in part because of the Hanukkah song, you know? In part because of a handful of factors that like led to him getting bigger and bigger and bigger over time. 1999 Big Daddy.

• 1:04:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Green?

• 1:04:41Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't.

• 1:04:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't think there's room?

• 1:04:47Sean Fennessey?

  No, I, I honestly haven't even gamed it out. This is one of the rare ones where I'm like, I'm just gonna go with the flow.

• 1:04:51Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:04:53Sean Fennessey?

  I'm a sandman.

• 1:04:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I know. You just wanna be here with your friends.

• 1:04:56Sean Fennessey?

  I know, I just wanna live in it. I like Big Daddy. I like Sandman going like, what if we made a movie that's more grounded in the real world, right? Not as ridiculous.

• 1:05:05Sean Fennessey?

  His performance is good, some notes of drama in this movie, right? Cause the relationship that he makes with the, is it Dylan Sprouse, the actor who plays the little kid?

• 1:05:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Cole and Dylan.

• 1:05:12Sean Fennessey?

  Cole, that's right, the twins.

• 1:05:15Sean Fennessey?

  And they're very good together. I see me recall Leslie Mann being smoking hot in this movie. Can't remember if that's true.

• 1:05:22Amanda Dobbins?

  That's always the way.

• 1:05:24Sean Fennessey?

  I like it, I like it.

• 1:05:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:05:26Sean Fennessey?

  I don't love it. Do you, do you like it? Did you like it at the time?

• 1:05:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I did. I, I mean, I think I just saw it, laughed. I wasn't really overthinking it. I was what, 15 at this point? So I like this one and I do feel that it's lived on.

• 1:05:43Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. Let's green it. Let's green Big Daddy.

• 1:05:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, we don't, I mean, we can un-green it if we have to.

• 1:05:47Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think of Jon Stewart's dramatic performance in the film? Did it work, Jack? Did you see that? Did you see Big Daddy, Jack? Okay, alright.

• 1:05:56Amanda Dobbins?

  There we go.

• 1:05:56Sean Fennessey?

  Then for Jack, we'll green it.

• 1:05:58Amanda Dobbins?

  There we go.

• 1:06:01Sean Fennessey?

  2000 Little Nicky.

• 1:06:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Which one's this one?

• 1:06:03Sean Fennessey?

  This is kinda like, well, this is like Satan's son and, uh...

• 1:06:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, right.

• 1:06:08Sean Fennessey?

  You know, come to earth and he's got the hair over his face. And it's kind of like a post-Limp Bizkit, like shitcore, United States energy. Um, some funny bits. It's bad.

• 1:06:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, I don't feel the... I remember it now, but no, it hasn't stayed with me.

• 1:06:22Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:06:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Red.

• 1:06:23Sean Fennessey?

  Reading Little Nicky. I kinda like Little Nicky, even though it's bad.

• 1:06:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:06:26Sean Fennessey?

  2002 Punch Drunk Love.

• 1:06:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Green.

• 1:06:29Sean Fennessey?

  That's a green. That's a green.

• 1:06:31Amanda Dobbins?

  This is an amazing, amazing performance.

• 1:06:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, very exciting that Paul Thomas Anderson also loves all these movies that we're talking about and identified that he wanted to work with Sandler. He still loves Sandler. He talks about Sandler all the time.

• 1:06:43Amanda Dobbins?

  And, um... And like, saw that the anger could be used in a different way, but that also, that there like, is softness and like different varieties of comedy that can be, um, you know, manipulated. It's really, really smart.

• 1:06:58Sean Fennessey?

  And the movie's not that funny. You know, it really is like kind of a sad character study that becomes a romantic exploration of like, the collision of love and anger.

• 1:07:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:07:09Sean Fennessey?

  Like, that's really his, the duality of the Sandler persona. He's not that silly. He gets to do his little dance in the supermarket and he has some charming moments.

• 1:07:16Amanda Dobbins?

  The snack wells, yeah.

• 1:07:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but you know, him yelling at Philip Seymour Hoffman through the phone. Intense stuff, you know? You're feeling, you're grabbing the front of the seat in front of you. Um, definitely going in Punch Drunk Love. 2002 Mr. Deeds. This is a soft reboot of a Frank Capra classic.

• 1:07:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:07:35Sean Fennessey?

  Starring Winona Ryder. It's quite poor.

• 1:07:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's a no.

• 1:07:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, no Mr. Deeds. 2002 Eight Crazy Nights, which is a kind of a riff on his Hanukkah song success.

• 1:07:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Crazy Nights.

• 1:07:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, an animated movie from the mind of Adam Sandler. Now, this is when you can see he's like... He's like a mogul.

• 1:07:55Amanda Dobbins?

  He's become aware to the idea, to the Adam Sandler brand.

• 1:07:58Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that he has like fully put Happy Madison into, into work to expand who he's appealing to. You know, that it's not just me drinking a Miller Lite on a Friday with my friends in college. Like it is families, it is like he is starting to mature a little bit going into his 30s and thinking about reaching more people. I think Eight Crazy Nights, okay. It does have the great distinction of being one of the very few Hanukkah themed animated movies. And he's, he's made more Hanukkah themed and Jewish themed movies over his, uh, career.

• 1:08:32Amanda Dobbins?

  We already have five. So, and if we're doing anything Eight Crazy Nights related, it'll be the Hanukkah song.

• 1:08:37Sean Fennessey?

  I, I hear you. I'm just want to say a yellow to acknowledge the work.

• 1:08:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. All right.

• 1:08:41Sean Fennessey?

  2003 Anger Management.

• 1:08:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:08:43Sean Fennessey?

  Now he, now, now, I don't love the movie.

• 1:08:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it's, it's iconic.

• 1:08:50Sean Fennessey?

  It is iconic.

• 1:08:50Amanda Dobbins?

  But it is also that Jack Nicholson smile is, the meme is from Anger Management, right?

• 1:08:57Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yes.

• 1:08:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. The zoom in. Yes.

• 1:09:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. This one's directed by Peter Siegel, who he worked with a handful of times over the years Sandler and directed, you know, one of the Naked Gun movies. He directed Tommy Boy. You know, he's been at the center of some big comedy hits. And it was an huge success. I'd like to know what the box office of this movie was actually. Where is that in the document?

• 1:09:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Right?

• 1:09:22Sean Fennessey?

  This movie made $200 million worldwide.

• 1:09:26Amanda Dobbins?

  We used to live in a country, you know?

• 1:09:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, he has a few of these that we'll get to. I think, yes, because of the combination of pairing, identifying that Sandler and Nicholson are not as far apart as you would think.

• 1:09:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:09:40Sean Fennessey?

  That their energy, that their, their personas as actors.

• 1:09:45Sean Fennessey?

  You think we should be yellowing this?

• 1:09:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:09:47Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's yellow it.

• 1:09:47Amanda Dobbins?

  We have some more stuff.

• 1:09:48Sean Fennessey?

  It's not a movie that I love.

• 1:09:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:50Sean Fennessey?

  Fifty First Dates, do you feel like, so this is another movie that people love.

• 1:09:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I, yeah, I, it's, I've seen it many times.

• 1:09:56Sean Fennessey?

  Very big hit.

• 1:09:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, and like also-

• 1:09:58Sean Fennessey?

  It is a duplication a little bit of The Wedding Singer.

• 1:10:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree. Um, and it's like a useful, like, thought exercise. Like, I do feel like Fifty First Dates, like, has become a reference point outside of the movie, but, um, I don't, I, we can yellow it.

• 1:10:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, well, yellow Fifty First Dates.

• 1:10:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:10:13Sean Fennessey?

  Two thousand and four Spanish.

• 1:10:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:10:14Sean Fennessey?

  This is deep red. This is a black red. I don't get this movie.

• 1:10:20Amanda Dobbins?

  So you, the story of the edibles and the watching Spanglish-

• 1:10:25Sean Fennessey?

  I wasn't a part of that.

• 1:10:26Amanda Dobbins?

  You were fine, and you were asleep.

• 1:10:28Sean Fennessey?

  I, here's the story.

• 1:10:32Sean Fennessey?

  Me, my wife, Chris Ryan and his wife, went on a, you know, weekend vacation-

• 1:10:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:10:37Sean Fennessey?

  -to a winery in California. We stayed in an inn.

• 1:10:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:10:41Sean Fennessey?

  Had a nice afternoon, trying wines. This is well before we had children and we could just drink all day.

• 1:10:45Amanda Dobbins?

  This is before I moved to California.

• 1:10:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, you were not living in California at the time.

• 1:10:48Amanda Dobbins?

  But I heard about it.

• 1:10:49Sean Fennessey?

  And we had a nice, really nice day, you know, tried some Jammies Inns, you know, some-

• 1:10:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Phoebe and Eileen loved Jammies Inns for a while there.

• 1:10:58Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, and at the end of the day, we decided to have some edibles. These were chocolate edibles, you know, not gummies, and this was, I think, might have been maybe right at the dawning of the legalization of marijuana in California.

• 1:11:11Amanda Dobbins?

  It was definitely before 2016, so it's a full decade ago.

• 1:11:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Plus.

• 1:11:16Sean Fennessey?

  And we just, we just got hit fucking hard. We just got bulldozed by this chocolate.

• 1:11:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And also, weren't you stay, did you have adjoining rooms?

• 1:11:26Sean Fennessey?

  We had adjoining, well, I don't know.

• 1:11:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it was like the bathroom, right? It was like his and-

• 1:11:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, maybe they were next door, I don't, we were close by, but we took, basically like, took the edible and then we're like, "All right, see you later," like, we didn't hang out. We made a huge mistake.

• 1:11:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:11:38Sean Fennessey?

  You know, and it hit me really hard and it hit Phoebe really hard.

• 1:11:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:42Sean Fennessey?

  And then Phoebe and Chris decided to watch Spanglish. I guess they watched the whole movie. While Phoebe was like tripping the light fantastic.

• 1:11:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, I always imagine her like doing like the Leo in Wolf of Wall Street, you know?

• 1:11:54Sean Fennessey?

  I was more just like, uh, I was asleep, but in whilst asleep.

• 1:12:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:12:00Sean Fennessey?

  I was in the fifth dimension. I was like.

• 1:12:03Amanda Dobbins?

  What did you find there?

• 1:12:05Sean Fennessey?

  I couldn't move any of my limbs.

• 1:12:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:12:07Sean Fennessey?

  I couldn't figure out why. Like, it was paralysis.

• 1:12:10Amanda Dobbins?

  But isn't that also how you sleep?

• 1:12:12Sean Fennessey?

  Psychotronic energy in my mind.

• 1:12:13Amanda Dobbins?

  You sleep like Superman, you said. I only recently learned that you sleep with your arms by your side.

• 1:12:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I do sleep like Superman.

• 1:12:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So can, but normally you can move your limbs?

• 1:12:21Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, you can roll over. I'll sleep on my side a little bit sometime, you know? Like, like, I had no, I couldn't, it's like the circulation of my body stopped.

• 1:12:28Amanda Dobbins?

  And that is frightening.

• 1:12:29Sean Fennessey?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:12:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:30Sean Fennessey?

  Anyway, uh, Spanglish, the James L. Brooks film.

• 1:12:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:12:33Sean Fennessey?

  Built around.

• 1:12:35Amanda Dobbins?

  What a 20 year run for him.

• 1:12:36Sean Fennessey?

  Adam Sandler and Taileon. Um, yeah, James L. Brooks, one of the great movie writers of all time, kind of hit a speed bump in 2004, and it really hasn't recovered as a movie maker, unfortunately.

• 1:12:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:45Sean Fennessey?

  Great mind, but, um, this movie is just like really, really sour. And the Taileon character is like really unfortunate, and I don't think it's, I, it's another example of like Sandler trying something and working with a really talented person. So I respect that he did it, um, but it didn't turn out.

• 1:13:02Amanda Dobbins?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by State Farm. Having people in your corner to help you makes all the difference. For example, I'm usually loathe to trust Sean and his movie recommendations, but after many months of him waxing rhapsodic about Train Dreams, I finally watched it, and I have to be honest, he was right. It was wonderful.

• 1:13:20Sean Fennessey?

  And like those people, State Farm is there to help you feel supported by helping you choose the coverage you need. Go online at statefarm.com or use the award-winning app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. 2005, The Longest Yard? Uh, no.

• 1:13:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:37Sean Fennessey?

  Dead no. This movie did not need to be remade. I don't like it. Um, it's not interesting to me, so no. 2006, Click.

• 1:13:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I just Googled this, and it's Adam Sandler posing with a remote control, much like my younger son almost every day.

• 1:13:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so, um, this is a movie about a guy who.

• 1:14:00Sean Fennessey?

  Struggling with life and meets an inventor and the inventor gives him a remote control that allows him to skip the boring parts of life.

• 1:14:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:07Sean Fennessey?

  Sandler, the movie's not great. It's kind of sweet and very saccharine. It has some funny stuff. He's married to Kate Beckinsale in the movie.

• 1:14:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:17Sean Fennessey?

  Makes sense.

• 1:14:20Sean Fennessey?

  But it's another example of him like consistently doing these Capra-esque comedies.

• 1:14:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:14:24Sean Fennessey?

  With not Capra-esque filmmakers.

• 1:14:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:14:27Sean Fennessey?

  Where like the idea on paper is an interesting exploration of like

• 1:14:32Sean Fennessey?

  the emptiness at a certain stage of life. You know, he's actually kind of interested in these bigger ideas, but they always manifest in these goofball movies. So I would say Click, even though it was also a monstrous hit, is not going in. Do you agree with that?

• 1:14:47Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I agree. Do you, does Alice ask to fast forward through parts of movies she doesn't like at this point? This has become a real issue in my home.

• 1:14:54Sean Fennessey?

  We've learned how to start hiding when something is happening on screen that we don't like. We don't fast forward.

• 1:14:58Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, it's not always because of fear. It's just because there's been a-

• 1:15:02Sean Fennessey?

  Like boredom?

• 1:15:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, or I want the next thing, or I want this part.

• 1:15:05Sean Fennessey?

  We don't do that.

• 1:15:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, obviously, we don't do it either, but the impulse is an interesting indication of human nature.

• 1:15:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, maybe here and there, but not too often.

• 1:15:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well.

• 1:15:15Sean Fennessey?

  Click made $237 million worldwide.

• 1:15:18Amanda Dobbins?

  2006 was a different time.

• 1:15:21Sean Fennessey?

  That is the seventh highest grossing movie of his career.

• 1:15:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:15:26Sean Fennessey?

  Some people would make the case that a movie like this should go in. One of these high concept movies in the mid 2000s when things were still fine in Hollywood.

• 1:15:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but we've got higher live action ones.

• 1:15:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, you're saving space for Rain Over Me, which is the post 9/11 Mike Binder comedy about a guy who's lost his family and is trying to reconnect.

• 1:15:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:45Sean Fennessey?

  Starring Sandler and Don Cheadle. Noble effort. Another movie that I appreciate that he tried to make this film, his performance is not bad as like a deeply depressed person who is recessed. But it's not going in.

• 1:15:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I watched this on vacation with my mother once because this was like, this was before, you know, the world at your fingertips.

• 1:16:04Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:04Amanda Dobbins?

  And you couldn't travel with your Apple TV or whatever. And then you were just stuck with what was ever, what was on TV.

• 1:16:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:16:12Amanda Dobbins?

  It's really not an enjoyable experience.

• 1:16:14Sean Fennessey?

  Not going in.

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  I have to be honest, guys. We have built Hall of Fames for living legends like Robert Redford. Paul Newman, I have never been more overwhelmed looking at a Google Doc before being like, how the fuck are we going to get this down to 10 movies?

• 1:16:29Sean Fennessey?

  We will.

• 1:16:30Amanda Dobbins?

  We will. We'll do it. We can make decisions.

• 1:16:33Sean Fennessey?

  What you are you about to stump for I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry? I mean, he's got a lot of movies that are not going in.

• 1:16:37Speaker 02

  There are literally like a dozen more that I could make yellow.

• 1:16:40Sean Fennessey?

  That's that's generational. That is generational. So and I'm comfortable with that. I would love to have that encounter because I I don't really care as much about some of the late 2000s, early 2010s movies, but I know that they're very important to a lot of generations, in part because of Bill and his family. They fucking love those movies. So we'll get to them. Rain Over Me is red. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, which I just don't think is very funny. It's opposite him and Kevin James. And Kevin James increasingly becomes a bigger part of his world. And Adam Sandler produces a lot of Kevin James movies as well. And I never found Kevin James all that funny, even though, you know, the pride of Queens and a Mets fan and in theory, somebody who I'm in league with, but I'm just not, I just don't think he's funny. So that movie's out. That's a this is a movie

• 1:17:24Sean Fennessey?

  about where two guys need to pretend that they're a gay couple so that they can get a special dispensation in their life.

• 1:17:29Amanda Dobbins?

  It's yeah, it's best left in 2007 on all fronts.

• 1:17:32Sean Fennessey?

  You don't mess with the Zohan.

• 1:17:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I was surprised by how much money this made when you when looking at the box office.

• 1:17:39Sean Fennessey?

  How much did it make?

• 1:17:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I scrolled down, but this is it made $100 million domestic, $202 million worldwide.

• 1:17:50Sean Fennessey?

  This is a movie about an Israeli super soldier who wants to be a hairstylist.

• 1:17:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:59Sean Fennessey?

  And then does. That's the movie.

• 1:18:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Follow your dreams.

• 1:18:03Sean Fennessey?

  Emmanuel Shriki as the female lead and at a time right in the heart of the Entourage times.

• 1:18:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:18:10Sean Fennessey?

  That worked very well. You know, I remember very specifically Judd Apatow having a strong producing role in this movie and this being kind of situated with the 40 year old virgin knocked up hero of films. We'll come back to Judd Apatow shortly.

• 1:18:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:25Sean Fennessey?

  This was always in the like, super high concept, super silly realm that I never loved. But movie was a huge hit. I say red.

• 1:18:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Hard Red.

• 1:18:34Sean Fennessey?

  Jack, any, any problems with that?

• 1:18:37Speaker 02

  With you don't mess with the Zohan?

• 1:18:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:39Speaker 02

  Definitely no problems on that one.

• 1:18:40Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Are you about to make a case for bedtime stories?

• 1:18:43Speaker 02

  You could convince me.

• 1:18:45Sean Fennessey?

  This is a Disney movie.

• 1:18:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:46Sean Fennessey?

  You know, and this is a very sweet movie and I, I assume you must have been, what, nine years old when this movie came out?

• 1:18:51Speaker 02

  Seven years old.

• 1:18:51Sean Fennessey?

  Seven years old.

• 1:18:53Amanda Dobbins?

  It's worse when we.

• 1:18:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you don't want to hear it in that context, yeah.

• 1:18:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:59Speaker 02

  I mean, it's definitely not good, you know, but it's just right time, right place, right age.

• 1:19:03Sean Fennessey?

  I think, is this the movie that Adam Shankman made right after Hairspray, I think? I think it is. It might have been right before Hairspray. But, um, this is a movie about a handyman who finds out that the stories that he's telling his, I got, I think it's his nephew and his niece are true. And that then we see in the world that he's able to, he has this like power to.

• 1:19:27Amanda Dobbins?

  The power of stories.

• 1:19:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:29Amanda Dobbins?

  We're all storytellers.

• 1:19:32Sean Fennessey?

  Do you see yourself as a storyteller?

• 1:19:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I really don't.

• 1:19:34Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think you're a good storyteller?

• 1:19:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, when, yes. Like when the, like when I'm in my groove, you know, when it's a performance, I don't know. We're, we're all still waiting.

• 1:19:45Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, what, you want to make a case for it, Jack? Is there anything you want to say?

• 1:19:48Speaker 02

  No, not actually.

• 1:19:49Sean Fennessey?

  Is it just a sentimental fave?

• 1:19:51Speaker 02

  No, it's not even specific to this movie. Like, I'm just looking at this Google Doc and there's so many movies I've probably seen like 20 times.

• 1:19:58Sean Fennessey?

  This is your childhood?

• 1:19:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I, I get it. I, I was, uh, in my mid twenties at this time, so it's not as, not as fertile ground for bedtime stories. That's red. 2009 Funny People. I believe that.

• 1:20:09Amanda Dobbins?

  This is important.

• 1:20:09Sean Fennessey?

  This movie has made a pretty strong comeback in terms of being not just like underrated, but actually quite good. And even though it is still a bit long, which is one of its biggest criticisms when it came out, that it's one of Appetite's best movies. Is it his best movie?

• 1:20:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, no, I don't think so. Some of the earlier ones are more complete.

• 1:20:29Sean Fennessey?

  You know what movie this movie reminds me of? Jay Kelly.

• 1:20:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it's a little more even in tone. It is, it's too long, but I understand what it's going for. This is really good. I would be fine with it as a green.

• 1:20:40Sean Fennessey?

  I, my, my instinct would be green because it's a very, very good performance. He and Seth Rogen are terrific together. Sandler plays an established comedian who has brought on a younger comedian to help write for him. And then we see kind of both sides of their lives and some of the emptiness they both have, some of the things that are great about their lives. Big expansive cast, you know, some crazy stuff going on with Leslie Mann and Eric Bana in this movie.

• 1:21:05Sean Fennessey?

  You know, Aubrey Plaza, Jason Schwartzman, Aziz, like a lot of really funny people in the movie.

• 1:21:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And like pretty early in the moments for all of those.

• 1:21:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And like the great cameo stuff at the party at the beginning with Eminem, like there's a lot of really good moments in this movie. And it does have like a strong, it weirdly has strong critical support. I don't know if it's rewatched that much. I'd like to go back to it, actually. I guess I would yellow it with, with an inclination to make it green.

• 1:21:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:21:33Sean Fennessey?

  Grownups?

• 1:21:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, that's the, it's the fourth highest grossing? Or is, did it gross more than Grownups 2? Yes, Grownups did out gross Grownups 2.

• 1:21:43Sean Fennessey?

  Wow. A wicked, wicked for good situation.

• 1:21:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And it is the highest grossing.

• 1:21:50Sean Fennessey?

  Live action.

• 1:21:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Human movie.

• 1:21:53Sean Fennessey?

  I would.

• 1:21:53Amanda Dobbins?

  With all respect to Dracula.

• 1:21:54Sean Fennessey?

  I would say.

• 1:21:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Is Dracula human?

• 1:21:57Sean Fennessey?

  He was.

• 1:21:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but.

• 1:21:59Sean Fennessey?

  His soul is gone.

• 1:22:00Amanda Dobbins?

  In Hotel Transylvania.

• 1:22:02Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, he was. He's a vampire now.

• 1:22:04Amanda Dobbins?

  But so, but Hotel Transylvania doesn't try to humanize him?

• 1:22:10Sean Fennessey?

  Well, there's humanizing and then there's the corporeal form.

• 1:22:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm talking about humanizing.

• 1:22:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he's like a, he's a dad working on things.

• 1:22:17Amanda Dobbins?

  There you go.

• 1:22:18Sean Fennessey?

  You know, he's kind of a Bob Ferguson.

• 1:22:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:22:22Sean Fennessey?

  Grownups would be an acknowledgement of success.

• 1:22:26Sean Fennessey?

  Do you want that to be the representation of this guy? Even in 2010, as things were starting to go deeply into franchises? And the whole business was shifting and comedy was starting to go out of fashion at this point. That this guy could still draw hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office just by goofing off with his buddies?

• 1:22:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I guess, though I, 2003 is earlier.

• 1:22:51Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:53Amanda Dobbins?

  But I think I would rather that be.

• 1:22:56Sean Fennessey?

  Anger management, you're saying?

• 1:22:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, anger management as the.

• 1:22:58Sean Fennessey?

  Let's yellow grownups and keep the conversation moving.

• 1:23:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:23:02Sean Fennessey?

  2011, just go with it.

• 1:23:04Amanda Dobbins?

  This is Jennifer Aniston.

• 1:23:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:23:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I know this is big for a lot of people. It's never really been huge for me.

• 1:23:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's not for me either. Is this your favorite movie of all time, Jack?

• 1:23:12Speaker 02

  Brooklyn Decker was deeply important to me.

• 1:23:14Sean Fennessey?

  Well, yeah, there's that.

• 1:23:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:23:16Sean Fennessey?

  We do remember the, the beach sequences from the film.

• 1:23:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:20Sean Fennessey?

  And congratulations to her on all her success.

• 1:23:25Sean Fennessey?

  And congratulations to Andy Roddick.

• 1:23:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna say, she's still, yeah.

• 1:23:29Sean Fennessey?

  I never thought this movie was funny, but families love it. And I wonder if like, eight years from now, me, Eileen and Alice, sit down on the couch and fire up Just Go With It and we're like, I know, I get it. I see it all happening. I guess I'm just not really in the family comedy era of my life back then.

• 1:23:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:46Sean Fennessey?

  So I, in my Hall of Fame, I wouldn't put it in.

• 1:23:49Amanda Dobbins?

  That's fine with me.

• 1:23:50Sean Fennessey?

  Jack and Jill is going in some other bizarro world Hall of Fame. The dumbest movie alive fame, Hall of Fame.

• 1:24:00Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, it's a hard no.

• 1:24:02Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. That's My Boy. Do you remember this one?

• 1:24:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't.

• 1:24:05Sean Fennessey?

  This is the one where Adam, Andy Samberg plays his son in an uncanny bit of casting.

• 1:24:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:24:11Sean Fennessey?

  And I think Andy Samberg is getting married and his father and he have a complicated relationship.

• 1:24:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:24:18Sean Fennessey?

  And it's like 47% of a good movie. It never quite gets to where I wanted it to go. So my instinct is to say red.

• 1:24:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that this is gonna be a red.

• 1:24:28Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Having just watched Hotel Transylvania.

• 1:24:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:33Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't really like it that much.

• 1:24:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:24:35Sean Fennessey?

  And while I do think it is important to his career and it was a smart move on his part. I'm sure he gets to benefit greatly from having a producing role in these movies and them being such enormous successes. And him bringing all of his friends in to do voices and, you know, kind of leveraging all of that.

• 1:24:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Seems like a grand old time.

• 1:24:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:24:51Amanda Dobbins?

  But it doesn't need to go in the Hall of Fame.

• 1:24:52Sean Fennessey?

  It's red. Grownups 2 is also red.

• 1:24:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct.

• 1:24:55Sean Fennessey?

  Blended.

• 1:24:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I saw this in, maybe I went to a screening. Maybe I didn't actually see it in theaters, but I, I didn't have a great time.

• 1:25:03Sean Fennessey?

  What do you remember about it?

• 1:25:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I remember it being not particularly culturally sensitive.

• 1:25:11Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm. I remember that as well.

• 1:25:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And I remember that there were some animals, but I don't remember if they were real or CGI'd.

• 1:25:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. This is Sandler and Drew Barrymore go to South Africa.

• 1:25:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:25:24Sean Fennessey?

  And they encounter some cultural stereotypes.

• 1:25:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 1:25:28Amanda Dobbins?

  But not Rosamund Pike.

• 1:25:29Sean Fennessey?

  Very popular movie, very successful movie.

• 1:25:33Sean Fennessey?

  Not, how much did this movie make? Yeah, it made $127 million in 2014. Pretty incredible. Blended not going in. Top five, he shows up very briefly as himself in the movie with his, a movie directed by his buddy Chris Rock, your dad's favorite movie of that year, as I recall.

• 1:25:48Amanda Dobbins?

  He did want it to win the Oscar.

• 1:25:50Sean Fennessey?

  Alas, it didn't happen. 2014, Men, Women and Children, a risible drama by Jason Reitman that I think is very well intentioned, very well intentioned.

• 1:26:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Aren't they all?

• 1:26:01Sean Fennessey?

  They are. This is a movie about how computer bad. Don't look at computer.

• 1:26:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:26:07Sean Fennessey?

  It bad. And it is bad. And the movie's ideas are not wrong. The manner in which they are delivered is quite poor. So Men, Women and Children will not be going in.

• 1:26:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Hansel Elcourt is in this movie. I didn't remember that.

• 1:26:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's a pretty stacked cast, as I recall. Who else is in it? Is it Catherine Keener?

• 1:26:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Jennifer Garner, Rosemary DeWitt, The Legend.

• 1:26:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Caitlin Dever.

• 1:26:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Judy Greer. Oh, Timothy Chalamet's film debut. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

• 1:26:34Sean Fennessey?

  Emma Thompson's in this movie. She's the narrator.

• 1:26:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Doesn't really work. Not going in. I like that he tried. I also like that he tried The Cobbler.

• 1:26:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:46Sean Fennessey?

  This is yet another of the Capra-esque films that he has attempted. This is the film that immediately precedes Spotlight.

• 1:26:56Sean Fennessey?

  And director Tom McCarthy.

• 1:26:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:26:57Sean Fennessey?

  And he was just, you know, had range, I would say.

• 1:27:01Amanda Dobbins?

  So it went The Cobbler, Spotlight, Stillwater?

• 1:27:06Sean Fennessey?

  No, there's something in between those.

• 1:27:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I also recently found a Tom McCarthy novel just floating around our house.

• 1:27:13Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, does he write books as well?

• 1:27:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so. I think it's the same.

• 1:27:18Sean Fennessey?

  He also made a movie called Timmy Failure, Mistakes Were Made, for the Disney Channel.

• 1:27:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:27:26Sean Fennessey?

  And then Stillwater in 2021.

• 1:27:29Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting career. You know, The Station Agent and The Visitor are two of the best independent dramas of their time in the early 2000s. Spotlight, terrific movie.

• 1:27:37Amanda Dobbins?

  One of my favorites. Maybe it's a different Tom McCarthy, but I've always assumed it was him because, you know, he has range.

• 1:27:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, The Cobbler is about a magical cobbler.

• 1:27:50Sean Fennessey?

  He finds a magical sewing machine, is really what happens. And...

• 1:27:55Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a sewing machine?

• 1:27:56Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's, yeah, it's like a machine-

• 1:27:58Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a shoe machine.

• 1:27:58Sean Fennessey?

  A shoe-making sewing machine that allows him to stitch together new shoes that he can try on and walk in other people's feet.

• 1:28:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, sure.

• 1:28:05Sean Fennessey?

  See the world through their eyes.

• 1:28:06Amanda Dobbins?

  It was them that I carried you. Yeah.

• 1:28:09Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's not really a Christ-like story, I don't think. I don't think it's allegorically Judeo-Christian. It could be. Are you sure? I'm not entirely sure. And you know, Adam Sandler is Jewish, of course, as was Jesus.

• 1:28:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Cobbler's, carpenters, you know?

• 1:28:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you-

• 1:28:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Stitch in materials together?

• 1:28:25Sean Fennessey?

  You might be on to something, yeah. And together we have woven the fabric of humanity. Cobbler is red.

• 1:28:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:32Sean Fennessey?

  2015 Pixels? This is a movie about video games coming into the real world to crush people?

• 1:28:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm. See, I told you.

• 1:28:39Sean Fennessey?

  Did you see this one?

• 1:28:40Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:28:40Sean Fennessey?

  This is like a big action comedy.

• 1:28:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't see this.

• 1:28:44Sean Fennessey?

  It was very successful. Jack's nodding his head no. I remember it being very poorly reviewed. It did in fact make $244 million.

• 1:28:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Directed by Chris Columbus.

• 1:28:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:28:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Michelle Monahan, Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad, and Brian Cox.

• 1:29:02Sean Fennessey?

  Michelle Monahan, god, he's so good at female co-leads. Really love what he's up to there. Pixels not going in. Chris Columbus apparently directing Gremlins 3. Your thoughts?

• 1:29:22Amanda Dobbins?

  What is the last thing that Chris Columbus directed?

• 1:29:24Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, The Santa Claus Chronicles 2? I think that is what he did.

• 1:29:28Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it wasn't at the Thursday Murder Club!

• 1:29:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:29:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm sorry. It's okay.

• 1:29:40Sean Fennessey?

  Moon's Three, coming soon. Hotel Transylvania 2, also 2015, not going in.

• 1:29:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Yeah.

• 1:29:44Sean Fennessey?

  The Ridiculous Six. Now, of course, a consequential movie. One of the most significant movies with regard to what we've been discussing this week about Netflix. Because Adam Sandler signing on to Netflix, in a way, legitimized the movie-making operation in the same way that the House of Cards TV initiative legitimized their TV operation. The Ridiculous Six was huge. Most of his movies on the service have been huge. He draws a crowd. We've been talking about what a huge commercial artist he is. And I think this movie is really unfunny and one of his least successful comedies, but it was big time when it hit. And it was the first time, I think.

• 1:30:22Amanda Dobbins?

  It was a thing.

• 1:30:23Sean Fennessey?

  Was it the first time, though, that it was like, like a straight-to-streaming movie was a huge hit?

• 1:30:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh...

• 1:30:33Sean Fennessey?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:30:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to remember if there are any other Netflix...

• 1:30:37Sean Fennessey?

  There obviously were cable movies before this.

• 1:30:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:30:40Sean Fennessey?

  And there were prestige plays coming in the aftermath of this for Netflix. But a pure streaming play movie that you could quantifiably say had millions of viewers.

• 1:30:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:53Sean Fennessey?

  It could be. And in that way, it's very important.

• 1:30:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, so the Netflix films in order, the very first, can you name it?

• 1:31:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, it's the, um, Idris Elba film.

• 1:31:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:31:04Sean Fennessey?

  Beast of No Nation. Yes.

• 1:31:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And then Ridiculous Six was second. So, and Beast of No Nation was October 2015, and Ridiculous Six was December. So I think they were like, here's your awards play, and here's your Adam Sandler movie at once.

• 1:31:17Sean Fennessey?

  Smart company, man. This is what I'm saying.

• 1:31:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:19Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I don't think this should go in, and in fact, this film's existence actually pierced my soul.

• 1:31:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:31:25Sean Fennessey?

  Um, but I just wanted to note that.

• 1:31:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:27Sean Fennessey?

  2016, The Do-Over?

• 1:31:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:30Sean Fennessey?

  I don't remember this one.

• 1:31:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't either.

• 1:31:31Sean Fennessey?

  This is also a straight to streaming movie.

• 1:31:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Do over, no, the do over LA.

• 1:31:36Sean Fennessey?

  Is this him and Chris Rock are the fathers of potentially of two kids were getting married?

• 1:31:43Amanda Dobbins?

  No, this is David Spade and Adam Sandler fake their deaths in order to start their lives all over.

• 1:31:52Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, we should do that. 2026.

• 1:31:56Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think we'd be mourned publicly? What do you think the reaction would be?

• 1:32:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it depends on how we die.

• 1:32:02Sean Fennessey?

  A dramatic boating accident on New Year's Eve.

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  Tracy Letts in CR takeover.

• 1:32:08Amanda Dobbins?

  We going on a boat?

• 1:32:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we're going on a boat.

• 1:32:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's exciting.

• 1:32:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that, you know, like they would build a Blu-ray shrine to you, you know?

• 1:32:21Sean Fennessey?

  They would.

• 1:32:22Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:32:22Sean Fennessey?

  Where would it stay? Where would it exist?

• 1:32:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I hope it's publicly available.

• 1:32:25Sean Fennessey?

  I want it to be at the top of Machu Picchu.

• 1:32:28Amanda Dobbins?

  When you die, I hope that the Sean Fennessey Memorial DVD closet is available to all.

• 1:32:35Sean Fennessey?

  4K closet.

• 1:32:37Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I said DVD on purpose. I know it makes you mad. See, your little nostrils are flaring. I know Blu-rays 4K.

• 1:32:44Sean Fennessey?

  4Ks. So no do over for me and you?

• 1:32:47Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:32:48Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think we'll be mourned?

• 1:32:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, but see what happens is.

• 1:32:51Sean Fennessey?

  Question about your legacy.

• 1:32:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Building you a little closet.

• 1:32:54Sean Fennessey?

  But that's not the same. That's something you do out of a sense of necessity. Will, will men and women quietly contemplate your absence?

• 1:33:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Every time they make a Negroni. Yes, they will.

• 1:33:05Sean Fennessey?

  That's beautiful. Okay. 2016, the do over out.

• 1:33:08Amanda Dobbins?

  That's a great legacy, honestly.

• 1:33:09Sean Fennessey?

  Negronis, people drinking Negronis whilst thinking of you?

• 1:33:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they're already doing that right now. 2017, Sandy Wechsler. This is a movie about a talent manager, kind of like an attempt to do a dopey Woody Allen style movie. That is, I thought, very unfunny.

• 1:33:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I remember this. Yeah, I didn't like it either.

• 1:33:28Sean Fennessey?

  So that's a no.

• 1:33:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Either. Okay.

• 1:33:29Sean Fennessey?

  So the, you know, the Netflix movies by and large haven't been good, except for 2017's The Meyerwood Stories.

• 1:33:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Wonderful.

• 1:33:36Sean Fennessey?

  Great movie.

• 1:33:37Amanda Dobbins?

  He's really good in it.

• 1:33:38Sean Fennessey?

  Great singing, dynamic stuff with Dustin Hoffman in this movie, dynamic stuff with, what is the actress's name? Grace Van.

• 1:33:48Sean Fennessey?

  And

• 1:33:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm doing it. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

• 1:33:51Sean Fennessey?

  Places daughter.

• 1:33:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Patton.

• 1:33:54Sean Fennessey?

  Grace Van Patton. Yes, she's wonderful in this movie. They're very funny together. Them singing together is magic. Great bomb back movie, a little underrated now. I feel a little lost. It was his first Netflix movie.

• 1:34:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm. I still think of the shot of Emma Thompson that's just from out the doorway and it's Emma Thompson driving the background, the car straight into.

• 1:34:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Really good.

• 1:34:20Sean Fennessey?

  I love this movie. I think this movie is so good. Um, I don't, were we even doing the show? We weren't doing the show in this movie.

• 1:34:25Amanda Dobbins?

  It was like right around when it was starting. It's, it's great.

• 1:34:29Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if it's like a legendary movie, but I would at least yellow it. Yeah, yellow it. Okay. 2018, I believe the week of is the movie with him and Chris Rock where they are the fathers of impending bride and groom.

• 1:34:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. And it's the week of the wedding. Yes.

• 1:34:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And it's not funny.

• 1:34:41Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:34:42Sean Fennessey?

  Another movie that on paper, I'm like, Chris Rock and Adam Sandler dads?

• 1:34:45Amanda Dobbins?

  This, your wedding rule, this ends with the wedding as opposed to starting with the wedding. Yeah.

• 1:34:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Not like Hotel Transylvania, which starts with a wedding. Um, Hotel Transylvania three, no.

• 1:34:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Summer vacation.

• 1:34:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Where is there summer vacation?

• 1:34:58Sean Fennessey?

  Tulum. That's why I went bad. 2019 murder mystery. Uh, you liked it.

• 1:35:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I chuckled. I liked that they did it.

• 1:35:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. We've now entered big picture territory where we've been covering these films.

• 1:35:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I'll never forget when this trailer debuted, my husband, who does not look at the internet very much, sent it to me. Within 10 minutes, it was like, we gotta watch this opening night, baby.

• 1:35:26Sean Fennessey?

  Did he call you a baby in the text?

• 1:35:28Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but it's, it was like the same voice that he used when we went to see, oh God, what, what trailer was it when he was like, we gotta see that in IMAX. I can't remember. He's just like, this is really, this is the big time.

• 1:35:41Sean Fennessey?

  Was it Zone of Interest? What was it?

• 1:35:43Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it was a trailer before Guardians of the Galaxy 3, so I don't really remember. Anyway, I liked that they did it.

• 1:35:50Sean Fennessey?

  Huge hit.

• 1:35:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Huge hit, also.

• 1:35:53Sean Fennessey?

  Not very good.

• 1:35:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Filmed in the Mediterranean, so that was cool.

• 1:35:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I like movies like this and I don't love this one, so I'm gonna say Murder Mysteries Red.

• 1:36:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Wasn't 2019 also their original Knives Out?

• 1:36:03Sean Fennessey?

  Certainly was.

• 1:36:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, which is, you know.

• 1:36:05Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of blotted out by that film.

• 1:36:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:36:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, which was doing the detective story better.

• 1:36:08Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, and then Knives Out went to Netflix and then.

• 1:36:11Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:36:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:12Sean Fennessey?

  And then, so did we, and so did everybody else. Uh, 2019, Uncut Gems.

• 1:36:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Green, green, green. This movie rules.

• 1:36:21Sean Fennessey?

  An incredible film, incredible performance. Howard Ratner, a gambler who doesn't know when to quit.

• 1:36:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:26Sean Fennessey?

  Who's on a quest for greatness and a quest for success that is unattainable, but that does not stem his ambition.

• 1:36:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:32Sean Fennessey?

  And, uh, if you haven't seen it, you should watch it.

• 1:36:35Amanda Dobbins?

  You really should.

• 1:36:36Sean Fennessey?

  Really, really good. It's kinda crazy to look back and think that this movie was not recognized. You know, it was successful at the box office and it's obviously like a legendary movie now, like it's got huge, beyond cult classic, people love this movie. But, um, 2019 was so competitive.

• 1:36:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:36:51Sean Fennessey?

  That it just kinda missed on a lot of the more like hallowed award season stuff.

• 1:36:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, though it did make it into Best Picture.

• 1:36:58Sean Fennessey?

  Did it?

• 1:36:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so. It was like one of the, did it not, or did it just get screened?

• 1:37:02Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think it did.

• 1:37:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Screen.

• 1:37:03Sean Fennessey?

  Cause he didn't get nominated.

• 1:37:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I really, well, because they have 10, but I remember that there was.

• 1:37:09Sean Fennessey?

  No, Uncut Gems, zero Oscars.

• 1:37:10Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it didn't. Oh, okay.

• 1:37:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 1:37:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, right, it would, the, I don't remember what I'm remembering that year.

• 1:37:17Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I remember being disappointed by that. No, obviously the movie, I was at the Telluride premiere of this movie and all the 65-year-olds were like, what in God's name is this? This is unacceptable, this energy in this film. We've now come to accept the safty energy as like a more common part of our move, our film grammar, I guess. Um, but Uncut Gems is automatically in. 2020, Hubie Halloween.

• 1:37:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:37:38Sean Fennessey?

  I loved it. It's not good. It's not good.

• 1:37:40Amanda Dobbins?

  But you loved it. Yeah, you love Halloween.

• 1:37:42Sean Fennessey?

  I love Halloween.

• 1:37:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:43Sean Fennessey?

  I love Halloween. I love Halloween comedy.

• 1:37:45Amanda Dobbins?

  This is why, like, I like a murder mystery. So I like murder mystery, and you like to be Halloween. That's fine.

• 1:37:50Sean Fennessey?

  We can say Hubie Halloween is red.

• 1:37:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:52Sean Fennessey?

  I love it. I can't wait to share it with my family. 2023 Hustle, interesting one.

• 1:37:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked this.

• 1:37:58Sean Fennessey?

  This is a good movie.

• 1:37:59Amanda Dobbins?

  It is good.

• 1:38:00Sean Fennessey?

  It's a movie about a NBA scout who's leveraging his entire career on a foreign-born player, a European player.

• 1:38:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:08Sean Fennessey?

  And the journey that they go on together to try to bring him to the NBA.

• 1:38:12Amanda Dobbins?

  To the Philadelphia 76ers, right?

• 1:38:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. Very, very good performance. Fun movie that kind of with a lot of real-life NBA figures, most notably Anthony Edwards, who's very good in the movie. Um, yellow?

• 1:38:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we can't, we should revisit it, for sure.

• 1:38:29Sean Fennessey?

  Murder Mystery 2, Otto Green.

• 1:38:32Sean Fennessey?

  No, that's going red. 2023 You Are So Not Invited to My Bot Mitzvah, where he plays the father, I believe the father of the lead, which is in fact his daughter. Is it Sadie Sandler? Is she the star of the film? I think it's Sadie Sandler.

• 1:38:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, they, several of them.

• 1:38:47Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah. His daughters and his wife have now appeared in many of his films over the last five or six years. Um, this is a cute comedy. Obviously, it's not a Sandler classic or anything like that, but he is very much...

• 1:39:00Sean Fennessey?

  Would you say it's using nepo for good?

• 1:39:04Sean Fennessey?

  It feels very self-contained, so it doesn't feel as like annoying.

• 1:39:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's, yes. I think it's a, it's a great, like, life thesis statement, which is use your success to do things you want to do with the people that you love.

• 1:39:19Sean Fennessey?

  I'm with you.

• 1:39:20Amanda Dobbins?

  It's amazing.

• 1:39:20Sean Fennessey?

  Well put.

• 1:39:21Amanda Dobbins?

  We should all be like it.

• 1:39:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And You Are So Not Invited to My Bot Mitzvah is red. Uh, 2023 Leo, an animated film in which he plays a turtle.

• 1:39:28Amanda Dobbins?

  So Sadie and Sonny are in the film, but it's Sonny who plays Stacy, who's preparing for the Bot Mitzvah.

• 1:39:34Sean Fennessey?

  She's the star. Okay. Got it. Leo, did you see Leo? Show Knox Leo?

• 1:39:39Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:39:40Sean Fennessey?

  Animated movie, not bad.

• 1:39:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:39:41Sean Fennessey?

  Not bad. It's red, though.

• 1:39:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Leo is, what kind of, a lizard?

• 1:39:45Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, he's a lizard. I thought he was a turtle. My mistake. Leo the lizard is logical, actually.

• 1:39:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Uh, Leo the twat.

• 1:39:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Tuatara? Tuatara? The species of reptile endemic to New Zealand. Despite its close resemblance to lizards, it is the only excellent member of a distinct lineage. Well, I am not gonna, anyway. Lizard-esque, but not a lizard. It's its own thing.

• 1:40:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:40:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you, Wikipedia, for all that you do.

• 1:40:14Sean Fennessey?

  We've only got three more films to talk about. I just remembered Edwin Diaz, and I'm just upset all over again. I was having a great time. This has been a very funny podcast. I got depressed again.

• 1:40:21Amanda Dobbins?

  You didn't want to learn about the, you know, the native species of New Zealand?

• 1:40:26Sean Fennessey?

  Show it to your son and teach him.

• 1:40:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Leo?

• 1:40:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Leo is the most beloved stuffy of size, of younger son, but Leo is a gondolier cat from Venice.

• 1:40:36Sean Fennessey?

  A gondolier cat from Venice?

• 1:40:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, like, I bought him in Venice. He's a gondolier cat. He has a little hat.

• 1:40:42Sean Fennessey?

  Understood.

• 1:40:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, it's tough now, though, because we gotta get a replacement, because Leo is so beloved, but the tariff situation, it's really, it's not ideal.

• 1:40:49Sean Fennessey?

  I'll stitch you in one. Handcrafted. Be like the cobbler, but for gondolier cats.

• 1:40:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Lovely little striped shirt because he's a gondolier cat, you know?

• 1:40:57Sean Fennessey?

  As one does. That's nice. This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime.

• 1:41:22Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat, or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what. You're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle, whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season. Whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're gonna want WeatherTech. For American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather, visit weathertech.com today.

• 1:41:47Sean Fennessey?

  2024 Spaceman, I spoke of this film earlier, not a success.

• 1:41:50Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:41:51Sean Fennessey?

  Not going in the Hall of Fame.

• 1:41:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Red.

• 1:41:52Sean Fennessey?

  2025 Happy Gilmore 2, the smash sensation of the year on Netflix.

• 1:41:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we're handing our vote out to Craig Horlebeck.

• 1:42:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, not going in.

• 1:42:01Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:42:03Sean Fennessey?

  2025 Jake Kelly. Now, it seems like you're not feeling it.

• 1:42:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not totally feeling it, but you really identified with this.

• 1:42:11Sean Fennessey?

  Well, what if it gets him his first Oscar nomination is my question for you, because he's not been nominated before. Now, I'm not saying he will, but I think he will. If I had to take bets, I would say he's getting in that fifth spot. Now, he's competing with Jacob Elordi and Paul Meskell.

• 1:42:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, for the spot?

• 1:42:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:42:29Sean Fennessey?

  Challenging.

• 1:42:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And there are six spots at the Golden Globes and only five at the Oscars, so.

• 1:42:36Sean Fennessey?

  That's correct.

• 1:42:37Amanda Dobbins?

  He's, I don't, I don't know. I don't know, but sure, if you want to do it, I don't mind.

• 1:42:41Sean Fennessey?

  Well, let's yellow it so that we can further this discussion.

• 1:42:44Amanda Dobbins?

  If you do that, we can do that for you and the Hanukkah song for me.

• 1:42:49Sean Fennessey?

  I'll give you the Hanukkah song no matter what. I think that's a great idea.

• 1:42:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Great, thank you.

• 1:42:52Sean Fennessey?

  Let's go back through our list. Now, we've got currently 2, 4, 6, 7 greens. We've got 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 yellows.

• 1:43:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:43:04Sean Fennessey?

  Jack, any extraordinary eliminations that you don't feel comfortable with here?

• 1:43:12Speaker 02

  Grownups is very personal to me. I'm also shocked Meyerwood's stories was yellow and not a green.

• 1:43:17Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I think it's great. I don't know if it's legendary.

• 1:43:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I also don't think we can do two bombas.

• 1:43:22Sean Fennessey?

  That's a very good point.

• 1:43:23Speaker 02

  But we have so much of the other stuff, too, that is somewhat duplicative.

• 1:43:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's because we are old and this was our childhood and it's still us making the list.

• 1:43:32Sean Fennessey?

  Right. There's not a strong case for Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, except we like them both, right? Like, they kind of represent the same thing.

• 1:43:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:39Sean Fennessey?

  But they're just both great.

• 1:43:40Speaker 02

  If I had to pound the pavement, it would be for Grownups, for me personally.

• 1:43:44Sean Fennessey?

  It's interesting. I mean, I'm very open-minded to that idea.

• 1:43:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I am as well.

• 1:43:48Sean Fennessey?

  Because the movie is so big.

• 1:43:49Amanda Dobbins?

  You can get a vote.

• 1:43:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:51Amanda Dobbins?

  You just can't take off the most important cinematic texts of the mid 90s.

• 1:43:55Sean Fennessey?

  You can't take off.

• 1:43:58Speaker 02

  Which I'm not advocating for, for the record.

• 1:44:01Amanda Dobbins?

  All right, but Grown Ups is greens, so that's eight greens.

• 1:44:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I'm gonna take off Airheads as a starting point, right? Airheads, a lot of fun.

• 1:44:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:08Sean Fennessey?

  Put it on 4K, I'll buy it.

• 1:44:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Take out Waterboy because we don't have passion for it and this era is represented quite well.

• 1:44:14Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. We'll get a little pushback on that, don't care.

• 1:44:16Amanda Dobbins?

  That's fine.

• 1:44:17Sean Fennessey?

  Eight Crazy Nights, I don't think we need it, considering what we're navigating here. Now comes the hard work.

• 1:44:24Sean Fennessey?

  My first instinct is that Hustle comes off, based on what we have left here.

• 1:44:27Speaker 02

  I would agree with that.

• 1:44:29Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what, Jack? You don't have to say it quite like that. You had a nice time watching Hustle.

• 1:44:34Sean Fennessey?

  I like Hustle.

• 1:44:35Amanda Dobbins?

  The struggle of Philadelphia sports is one that I live every day.

• 1:44:40Speaker 02

  I totally understand. I understand. I'm just saying comparatively.

• 1:44:43Amanda Dobbins?

  This has been a Mets-forward podcast, but let me tell you, it has not been great for the last 24 hours in the city of Philadelphia, with respect to sports, but also probably like the weather in general. No, I just, I thought you were a little dismissive.

• 1:44:59Speaker 02

  I apologize.

• 1:44:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And we had a nice time. Okay?

• 1:45:02Sean Fennessey?

  Hustle's coming off.

• 1:45:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so that leaves us with two, four, six, eight greens, and two, four, five yellows.

• 1:45:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:45:11Sean Fennessey?

  Now, we gotta make a choice between Myerwitz Stories and J. Kelly, then.

• 1:45:15Sean Fennessey?

  Will we, will it be foolish if J. Kelly becomes his Oscar nomination and it's not here? It doesn't, I'm not saying it would. I'm just asking the question.

• 1:45:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe?

• 1:45:25Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:45:25Amanda Dobbins?

  And you feel strongly about it, so...

• 1:45:28Sean Fennessey?

  I like it. I just, I like it.

• 1:45:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, then that's, then I'm okay with that. I really like Myerwitz Stories, too, but I, you know.

• 1:45:35Sean Fennessey?

  What's the better performance? You think it's Myerwitz?

• 1:45:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I think he has more to do in Myerwitz, personally.

• 1:45:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's make it Myerwitz.

• 1:45:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:45:45Sean Fennessey?

  J. Kelly's coming off.

• 1:45:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:46Sean Fennessey?

  We reserve the right to re-haul.

• 1:45:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we reserve the right to do whatever we want, at any time.

• 1:45:53Sean Fennessey?

  Anger Management and 51st Dates, does anger management go because we put Grown Ups in?

• 1:46:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:46:01Sean Fennessey?

  They are different. They are different, different phases.

• 1:46:06Sean Fennessey?

  But they do represent like incredible kind of success, like a movie stardom that is rare.

• 1:46:12Sean Fennessey?

  Anger Management would be my preference as a movie, but I do agree with what Jack is saying, which is that Grown Ups is like a huge movie.

• 1:46:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. There are sort of, there are several stepping stones here, which is, you know, the 90s era and then starting kind of in Big Daddy. Like, I guess Big Daddy and Anger Management are different.

• 1:46:36Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:46:36Amanda Dobbins?

  And Anger Management is like a leveling up, but they are of an era of Sandler being like a broader, big-budget star.

• 1:46:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Okay, so you think Big Daddy is doing the work that Anger Management does?

• 1:46:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's not, it's not a one-to-one, but we're close enough. And then Grown Ups represents a totally different box office era of success.

• 1:46:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, of dad, dad, family-focused stuff that is also filling in for Blended and for Just Go With It and for, you know, Bedtime Stories and Pixels and all those movies. That's what Grown Ups accomplishes.

• 1:47:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:47:07Sean Fennessey?

  So then we would take Anger Management off.

• 1:47:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:47:10Sean Fennessey?

  And then a blood feud between Fifty First Dates and Funny People.

• 1:47:13Amanda Dobbins?

  It's really...

• 1:47:13Sean Fennessey?

  So the better movie by far is Funny People.

• 1:47:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:47:17Sean Fennessey?

  But if you polled the people of America, Fifty First Dates is borderline canonical. It is like considered one of the last great studio rom-coms.

• 1:47:28Amanda Dobbins?

  When has polling the people of America worked out for us?

• 1:47:31Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not, you know, and when you put it in that context, well, right now, we've got extraordinary disapproval on some significant figures in the world.

• 1:47:38Amanda Dobbins?

  You're right. I guess when has the Electoral College poll ever worked out for us?

• 1:47:41Sean Fennessey?

  We don't use that system here on the show.

• 1:47:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, okay, that's, that's fair enough.

• 1:47:44Sean Fennessey?

  We, each vote counts individually. Yours, mine, and Jack's sometimes.

• 1:47:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, remember watching Fifty First Dates after my college boyfriend graduated from college?

• 1:47:56Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think he's doing right now?

• 1:47:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I got an update, like fairly recently.

• 1:48:00Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, you answered that question seriously.

• 1:48:02Amanda Dobbins?

  But I, I think he's well. I don't know, like, I don't...

• 1:48:05Sean Fennessey?

  Is he a cobbler? What does he do?

• 1:48:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, a magical cobbler.

• 1:48:09Amanda Dobbins?

  And also a storyteller. Anyway, I remember.

• 1:48:12Sean Fennessey?

  But he has some stories to tell about you.

• 1:48:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I remember sobbing because like we were breaking up because he graduated, you know? But then the opposite, like we did it.

• 1:48:22Sean Fennessey?

  You were sobbing or he was sobbing?

• 1:48:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I was during while watching 50 First Dates. He had already graduated.

• 1:48:26Sean Fennessey?

  Was he a big crier as well?

• 1:48:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think so.

• 1:48:30Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think about a man crying? Is it attractive? Is it a sign of weakness?

• 1:48:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I think, you know, that I will never forget you crying while watching I've Heard the Way of Water is what I think.

• 1:48:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that was, I've been told that's the sexiest thing anyone's done on a podcast in 2025. Someone told me that to my face.

• 1:48:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Can you name three of the family members?

• 1:48:52Sean Fennessey?

  Of course I can.

• 1:48:53Amanda Dobbins?

  That is not Jake Sully.

• 1:48:55Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, Keery.

• 1:48:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh huh.

• 1:49:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, what's, Loak? Loak?

• 1:49:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:05Sean Fennessey?

  And Neteri.

• 1:49:07Amanda Dobbins?

  There you go.

• 1:49:08Sean Fennessey?

  So yeah, of course I can.

• 1:49:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't offer you to.

• 1:49:10Sean Fennessey?

  This is what I, I mean, that's a, that's a layup for me, you know?

• 1:49:12Amanda Dobbins?

  There's a thing on Jam Session where I keep offering to Venmo Juliet $100 if she can tell me role model's real legal name. Can you do it without Googling right now?

• 1:49:21Sean Fennessey?

  Who?

• 1:49:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Role model?

• 1:49:22Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know who that is.

• 1:49:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Who will be starring in the new Lena Dunham film with Mark Ruffalo and Natalie Portman?

• 1:49:27Sean Fennessey?

  No idea who that is.

• 1:49:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well.

• 1:49:29Sean Fennessey?

  Role model?

• 1:49:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, of Sally, When the Wine Runs Out, When the Wine Runs Out.

• 1:49:34Sean Fennessey?

  Literally no clue what you're saying.

• 1:49:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I was on SNL and then Charli XCX showed up. She was the Sally for the SNL and people were like, is this a Taylor Swift-ess?

• 1:49:42Sean Fennessey?

  Haven't seen him.

• 1:49:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, um, well, his real name, you will not be getting $100 by Venmo, is Tucker Pillsbury.

• 1:49:49Sean Fennessey?

  That's his real name?

• 1:49:50Amanda Dobbins?

  That, like, as best I can verify. Like, I haven't seen the birth.

• 1:49:54Sean Fennessey?

  Right, you haven't called the CIA.

• 1:49:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not asking for it, okay, because.

• 1:49:56Sean Fennessey?

  Tucker Pillsbury.

• 1:49:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, AKA role model.

• 1:49:59Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Role model.

• 1:50:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You will be podcasting about him in the next two years, just so you know.

• 1:50:06Sean Fennessey?

  It's a frightening list of names that I don't yet know the people I will talk about on this show. Fifty First Dates versus Funny People.

• 1:50:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Funny People.

• 1:50:13Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Funny People. I agree, Funny People. Fifty First Dates, it's adequately represented by the wonderful work that Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler did together in The Wedding Singer.

• 1:50:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly, which is also in our Hall of Fame.

• 1:50:23Sean Fennessey?

  So here's our Hall of Fame.

• 1:50:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:24Sean Fennessey?

  Right now.

• 1:50:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:50:26Sean Fennessey?

  For Adam Sandler.

• 1:50:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:50:27Sean Fennessey?

  1994, The Hanukkah Song, not a film.

• 1:50:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 1:50:30Sean Fennessey?

  1995, Billy Madison. 1996, Happy Gilmore. 98, The Wedding Singer. 1999, Big Daddy. 2002, Punch Drunk Love. 2009, Funny People. 2010, Grown Ups. 2017, The Meyerowitz Stories. 2019, Uncut Gems. Very millennial-coded list here.

• 1:50:46Amanda Dobbins?

  We are who we are.

• 1:50:47Sean Fennessey?

  We are who we are.

• 1:50:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:48Sean Fennessey?

  Jay Kelly could come through.

• 1:50:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:50:51Sean Fennessey?

  And you would cut Meyerowitz or something else if?

• 1:50:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that, you know, if we're applying the 2025, 25 for 25 rules, that there's only one Bob Back allowed.

• 1:51:01Sean Fennessey?

  Got it. Okay. Well, I think we've done yeoman's work here.

• 1:51:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:51:05Sean Fennessey?

  And this has been a very cool podcast. Made by some cool people. Let's go now to my conversation with Noah Baumbach.

• 1:51:15Sean Fennessey?

  Noah Baumbach, back on the show. It's been some years. Last time I saw you was in a hotel room. Now we are in a hotel room again, and I'm in my home. And I was thinking about your body of work preparing for this. And I recently revisited the De Palma documentary because we talked about a De Palma movie on another podcast. And then this summer I watched you get the Telluride tribute. And I know you've been getting tributes. And now you're kind of looking back on your career in the same way that the character in your film is. I'm wondering if you felt like you, how you're feeling about that? Did you manifest that? Was there any intentionality into all that?

• 1:51:53Speaker 04

  No. It's probably a good marketing idea, I guess. I don't know. I, I, um, that wasn't mine.

• 1:52:04Speaker 04

  No, I guess it's, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm over 50. So now, now we have, we get to look back. I've, I've got, I've made a few movies.

• 1:52:14Sean Fennessey?

  Do you like seeing that stuff? When you're, when you're watching a tribute, do you feel happy, comfortable? Is it awkward?

• 1:52:21Speaker 04

  All of that, I think. I mean, it's, it's, um,

• 1:52:26Speaker 04

  I feel

• 1:52:29Speaker 04

  generally happy and proud and glad those movies are out there. And, uh, I think they all, it, you know, when you see like the back to back in the clip reel, because it's of course, even when you're making them, you're not thinking them in any kind of

• 1:52:49Speaker 04

  continuity with themselves. I mean, you're just sort of making the one that's,

• 1:52:55Speaker 04

  you know, in front of you. And, and so seeing it suddenly the way maybe somebody from the outside might see it, which is to, you know, kind of put things in context and think about how they relate to each other. I mean, it's, uh, I mean, it's interesting on a personal level, I suppose. And it's also, uh, it's also easier to talk about movies in the past than it is to talk about the movie that you're, you know, you're selling in the moment. Um, so conversations that I've had that are kind of more about the career in a way are easier for me to have than they are to like, talk about J. Kelly at this point.

• 1:53:36Speaker 04

  But, um, Netflix wouldn't like it if I didn't talk about J. Kelly. So I have to do that. But, um,

• 1:53:46Speaker 04

  But yeah, I mean, it's like this alternate version of myself that's out there. And I mean, because I also haven't seen the movie since they then since I made them. So it's also kind of interesting because I have perceptions of them in my head that I, you know, they are like memories in that way, like I've reconstructed what they are. You know, and I don't know if actually my like how I might think a movie of mine plays or how I feel about it now. I don't know how much it actually is is connected to the actual movie anymore. I mean, it's like some combination of my experience making it the my memory of the

• 1:54:30Speaker 04

  movie, maybe what some people have said to me over the years. So it's it's it's interesting that way. But but I feel very lucky and proud of the career.

• 1:54:41Sean Fennessey?

  So you never go back and look at something that you you made?

• 1:54:46Speaker 04

  No, only when I've had to do like Blu-rays or things like new versions of them. But like I've seen Squid again, I've seen Kicking and Screaming again.

• 1:54:59Speaker 04

  But the more recent ones, all of those sort of additions have essentially been made concurrent to the making of them. So then I I I've just sort of left them. I mean, I haven't, yeah, I haven't seen like I haven't seen Margot at the Wedding and since almost 20 years, probably. And then I haven't seen Greenberg since it came out.

• 1:55:22Speaker 04

  I mean, I've caught, I mean, when when TV was a thing, like when cable was a thing, like sometimes I, you know, I would bump into one or something, but that doesn't happen anymore. So when I see a clip reel, I get to see pieces of them.

• 1:55:39Sean Fennessey?

  What about your kids? Curious? You have an older son, right?

• 1:55:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, he's just starting to, he's now seen. The last couple, I mean, really, just, I guess, White Noise and Jay Kelly, he's seen when they came out or as they're coming out or as I'm working on them.

• 1:56:00Speaker 04

  But he hasn't seen, he saw Barbie, he hasn't seen

• 1:56:07Speaker 04

  really any of the movies yet of the earlier movies. So partly because up until now, I thought it'd just be better to wait.

• 1:56:18Speaker 04

  And but, you know, I think now he could. I mean, certainly somebody that that would be it'd be a good time for him to see.

• 1:56:29Sean Fennessey?

  Probably almost kicking and screaming time for him arriving at these phases of life.

• 1:56:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I feel like probably kicking, screaming, probably Francis or Squid in the Whale also. Because he's almost, he's really is the age of Jesse's character in that movie.

• 1:56:43Sean Fennessey?

  I'm curious about the arrival of this movie at this time for you. I'm two, two curiosities about that. One is collaborating with Emily specifically. I know you've had co writers before, but never with her. And I was just curious how you worked together, especially having made so many films. She's made many films and TV over the years, but doing it for the first time, what that's like.

• 1:57:07Speaker 04

  It didn't feel, I mean, it was kind of, I suppose it was inherent in the fact that I asked her because I felt I feel very comfortable with her. I mean, I, I've gotten to know her better over the last really few, I don't know, few years, couple, three years because of White Noise, because her kids were in White Noise. So I got to, we were all in Ohio, you know,

• 1:57:31Speaker 04

  standing on some abandoned highway with a rain tower at four in the morning. It's you start to have conversations and things. And, but I'd always liked her, always liked her when I saw her. I would see her at events and things and Sandro also. And I love her kids and I

• 1:57:56Speaker 04

  and I, you know, and then, I mean, I did love Doll and M, you know, when it was on. And, and I, I don't have a really good reason. I really just liked, I felt.

• 1:58:14Speaker 04

  Talking to her that we had a kind of good sort of thing going and it and when I started, I told her a bit about what I was working on, which was became Jay Kelly, but it was it was the the I had several things, you know, some that ended up in the movie, some that didn't and

• 1:58:38Speaker 04

  that I felt was like was a movie and a movie that I was ready to kind of explore and do and and I liked how she talked about it and and and then I I I posed it to her, but then I felt like, well, I said, I mean, if it doesn't work, we can just stop, you know, but we we never it was never a question. It was always just a really useful and pleasurable and she's brilliant. She's so funny and so smart and and and brought a perspective to the movie that I wouldn't I wouldn't have brought.

• 1:59:19Sean Fennessey?

  I was wondering how much the Barbie experience informed the writing of Jay and how far along you were on Jay before this because, I mean, just a global box office conquering thing, I I assume that all felt very new to you, given the massive success of that movie.

• 1:59:38Sean Fennessey?

  And it's like a, you know, it's a it's a sensitive portrayal of a person who's lost touch with himself, but it's also it's a very capital H Hollywood movie, and I don't think of your films in that way either.

• 1:59:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I I'm sure it did. I don't I wasn't a conscious thing. I mean, it it had the has the tone and the

• 1:59:59Speaker 04

  the scope that I felt was right for the movie and for the story. So I I I wasn't you know, consciously saying, oh, I want to make a broader, bigger movie or anything like that. And I don't know how much relationship I even have to that if somebody says that, you know, like, I mean, I can understand it, but I don't. It wasn't it wasn't a anything a goal in any way, but I'm sure it did. I'm sure. I mean, I what I do know is the experience of being on the set of Barbie and working with Greta on it and watching.

• 2:00:42Speaker 04

  The process, because I mean, White Noise was, was, I'm, I'm proud of the movie, but I, I didn't have a good time making it. It was just really difficult. And we were shooting in COVID and it was, it was, that was a big part of it. But it was just, it was a very complicated movie. And, and I think Barbie kind of brought me back a little bit, you know, uh, because I, I really was starting to feel like, like, do I love this? You know, I mean, like, I, I, I've always wanted to do this. I'm doing it. I've been doing it for years. Hey, uh, but I don't know, maybe, maybe I'll, I'll just write Barbie movies or something

• 2:01:27Speaker 04

  and, and, uh, and chip in, and chip in, you know? Um, but, but watching, being on the set and everything really was, I had a great time. I liked, um, uh, you know, all of it. And I was working with Emily, like, Emily and I did a lot, we did a lot of work over, over, I don't know, the course of maybe a year and a half, two years or something. And, um, because it kind of started, I think, when I was even cutting White Noise and we were shooting Barbie. And then it continued when we were cutting Barbie and we were, uh, so I would go,

• 2:02:12Speaker 04

  we would, she and I would work while we were also working on the edit. So I would go back and forth between the two, um, rooms. And so in that sense, I'm, I'm conscious of it.

• 2:02:26Sean Fennessey?

  I'm also curious about the, there's a kind of Fantasia quality, like a little Capra-esque quality in J. Kelly 2. And it feels like you're almost like splitting the difference between what you did in White Noise, but this kind of constructed world, and in Barbie, which is a very constructed world. You know, is, is that something that you're consciously saying? Like, I kind of want to expand the way in which I'm designing a movie. You know, there's like a dreamlike quality to J. Kelly that feels very different than what you've done before.

• 2:02:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I.

• 2:02:57Speaker 04

  I mean, I suppose it is, it does come out of qualities that those two movies have, both White Noise and Barbie, and it's a further exploration of that. But again, I wasn't thinking of it like that. I was thinking it more because of the nature of the story, because it is, it's a journey, you know, into Europe and on a train, but it is a journey into his past. And once we started writing the memories and the way he was going to essentially walk

• 2:03:36Speaker 04

  into them and they were going to exist in some ways concurrent to the present, that from that point forward, it did sort of, then it meant that it was going to have this kind of quality to it. So it's like, it was like a language that we, because it was part of the story, it was a language then that informed the rest of the movie. And it's not only that, the memories kind of develop as we go on. So it's like his way into the memories changes even, and the qualities of the memories are like, what even is possible in the memories?

• 2:04:17Speaker 04

  Like, he speaks in the, one of the final ones, you know, and he hasn't spoken before, really. And just sort of how these things could build on themselves and the language can expand. I mean, it's always interesting how language in movies can change. I mean, it can change and should change as the movie develops, whether the audience is aware of it or not. And it can be very subtle. It can be, you know, Sidney Lumet's always so very articulate about, you know, how he changes the framing and network as the movie, you know, there's always like very like defined

• 2:05:02Speaker 04

  versions of that. But I think it can happen in, I mean, in Francis Ha, for instance, like the,

• 2:05:13Speaker 04

  The camera really never moves without mostly Frances, but any character. And at the end, when she's writing out her mailbox, you know, name and she's, you know, in her, she's found her own apartment and she turns around and looks at the apartment and then the camera just pushes in and it's like the simplest thing. But I think it's, it's because of the way the movie's been constructed. It's like an emotional move, you know, which if you did it in scene two would mean nothing. And I, I think Meyerowitz, I remember like the music, you know, Randy Newman had done this piano score for the whole thing, but at the very end, an orchestra comes, you

• 2:05:57Speaker 04

  know, it's just, it's again, these are sort of simple, you know, things to refer to. But I think it's like as characters, it's as possibilities maybe expand for characters emotionally and psychologically, I'm interested in how the cinema of the movie can also expand. And because of Jay Kelly having these more, like you say, sort of magical aspects to it, it was going to necessarily affect the rest of the movie.

• 2:06:32Sean Fennessey?

  Is that why you hired Linus Sandgren? I was curious about that because he has just a comfort doing that kind of work?

• 2:06:39Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, I wanted to work with Linus before. So, I mean, I, I think I would have hired, I mean, I know I would have hired him, you know, if I was shooting two people in a room, um, you know, uh, but, uh, but certainly he was instrumental in, in, uh, the design and methodology and, and, and really the poetry of the whole thing. I mean, Linus is, I mean, he's, I think he's, he's an incredibly sensitive, I don't know if you've spoken with him, but he's like a very, I mean, sort of, he's very sensitive to character and to the emotion of a movie on just the most basic level. And then he's also incredibly inventive in terms of.

• 2:07:25Speaker 04

  Camera and lighting and what what methodology really like how how was the best way to do something? I mean, he'll come up with several, you know, sometimes I'm like, is that I use any possible? Like, what do you like, like the things and he's like, oh, of course it is, you know? And he'll have all the reasons, you know? And it's amazing. I mean, he's just so, you know, it's just very expansive how he kind of imagines, you know, a world in a movie.

• 2:07:58Sean Fennessey?

  Clooney really represents something about stardom and about the Hollywood engine that is definitely starting to feel a little bit antiquated or a little bit more challenged than it was 20 years ago. I'm curious if you see the film as like an elegy for that time as much as for this figure.

• 2:08:17Speaker 04

  I mean, we were aware of that. I think it from, I mean, it was, I think it was even built into my decision to do it. But I, I didn't feel like it even had to be acknowledged. It was, it was, it's the fact of it is, is an elegy in and of itself. I think it's, and I think George's sort of timelessness, qualityism, you know, he looks, he could be a movie star at any, in any era, I think, and from silent onward.

• 2:08:53Speaker 04

  So he, I think that adds to it too, that there's this, you know, this notion we all have of like, you know, movie stars live forever, they're, you know, and we're in a time when

• 2:09:09Speaker 04

  maybe they don't, I don't know.

• 2:09:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I don't know either. I hope they do, but I have some concerns.

• 2:09:17Speaker 04

  I mean, I think they do. I think they, of course they do, but I think, I mean, from a very just straightforward, I think it's just that there's not, you know, you don't, the thing with movie stars is you can't pick them. They have to reveal themselves and because we, no one understands and can quantify or qualify or talk what a movie star really is. It's just a feeling we get from people and, and.

• 2:09:46Speaker 04

  So if we're not making enough things for those people to, you know, for us to even know who they might be, then we're not going to find more of them. I mean, that's the thing. I mean,

• 2:09:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you've you've done something interesting with another star with Sandler. This is the second time it's somewhat similar as Meyerowitz, but in this film, you get something like really needy out of him. I don't know if I've ever seen him quite so desperate in a part. You know, he's angry and he's vivacious and exciting and but there's something really destroyed about this guy. And maybe you can just talk about why you wanted him for this and maybe even how he reacted to the material.

• 2:10:30Speaker 04

  Well, I think, I mean, they, because they are kind of shadow versions of each other, Jay and Ron. And we do that visually throughout sort of this doubling of the two of them. And I think even though Ron is going through, I mean, Jay is going through a kind of more Dark Knight of the Soul kind of existential

• 2:10:55Speaker 04

  crisis or, you know, search. And Ron is on the face of it, going through a more a more maybe ordinary and the sort of every day of balancing work and life. And, you know, is this the right, you know, I've been doing this job for all these years. Do I love it? Do I, you know, do I, is this, is this, is this person worth it? You know, I think they are, I love this person, but if they, if it's not worth it to them, why, why should it be worth it to me? Which of course then calls into question so many other things about the relationship and the friendship of like,

• 2:11:35Speaker 04

  is it all one sided? Don't I get to decide too whether or not we still do this? And the answer is no, in a, in a certain sense. And so I think it does create a kind of desperation for him. And, you know, I think, I mean, what I

• 2:11:54Speaker 04

  You know, it's like when I worked with, I remember you know, when Squid in the Whale, working with Jeff Daniels at one point and asking him like after a take, like, how did that feel to you? And he said, it felt funny, but he wasn't playing it funny. And I knew exactly what he meant. It felt funny. I think there's something, you know, in I always feel with all of my characters that there's something that feels funny, even at its most dramatic. And, and I don't mean it means that it's played for laughs or it comes off as funny. But I think there is something, there is like a comic version of what Adam's doing

• 2:12:33Speaker 04

  in the movie that you could imagine in another, if you just sort of adjust it slightly. And then there's a very moving, desperate, sad, I mean, heroic in his way too, version of what you, you know, you see him do. But because Adam obviously has a built in sense of humor, I do think there's something actually quite, it, the, I don't know if I'm saying it right exactly, but the humor in it plays, I feel like simultaneous to it. And so, you know, and I think in a large part is because of how Adam does it.

• 2:13:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I was trying to think if I think you're, are your movies getting funnier or more tragic? Like, it's possible that the movies are getting increasingly more tragic, but maybe it just depends on where you're at in your own life to determine that, too.

• 2:13:29Speaker 04

  I, I, I think so. I mean, I don't know. I think so. I think, I mean, I funny, I cause like, I, I feel like, you know, I, with, with Jay Kelly, I see people, you know, when you have to show up after a movie and talk to people or.

• 2:13:47Sean Fennessey?

  Shake hands with jerks like me. Yeah.

• 2:13:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, no, no, I don't mean like even this. I mean, like right after a movie, you know, like this sort of unnatural thing of like appearing on the other side of the door when people come out of Ruby, you know? And when you do that, you know, and I've seen how kind of, I mean, some people like crying in ways that, you know, like really affected by it. And then, you know, then someone else would come up to me and say like, like, oh, I just so enjoyed that or something like that. And, you know, as if it was a more straight comedy in some way, I suppose. I don't know. So I only say that in, in reference to what you said, which is, you know, I don't know.

• 2:14:34Speaker 04

  I don't know if they're getting funnier or more tragic. I guess it is, does really depends on, on this person or that person.

• 2:14:41Sean Fennessey?

  Can you talk a little bit about the Peter Schneider character? So I know you've been, you've been friends with a lot of older filmmakers and you've had mentors over the years and there's something very tragic about that character and sad. And I was just curious to hear you talk about kind of where he came from.

• 2:14:57Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, I mean, he's, it's, I mean, I, I've known versions and had experiences, versions of experiences of that from, you know, teachers, parents, other people in the industry, you know, people who I admired, who when I met them were less, weren't where they were, you know? I mean, there are sort of, there, there is in that scene. And of course with his name, there's, there is a, you know, a connection to Peter Badonovich, who I was very close

• 2:15:36Speaker 04

  with, who, when I met him in the nineties, was, had a kind of strange place in his life and career. And I mean, strange, meaning only in reference to the fact that he'd had such massive success and, and was sort of in a place where he was looking to get some movies made and, and having trouble and.

• 2:16:15Speaker 04

  It's such an interesting thing because it also speaks to how, you know, when we

• 2:16:23Speaker 04

  the way we see people, like the way we see our parents. I mean, this is a theme in many of my movies are, you know, where where there are heroes there. I mean, they're

• 2:16:36Speaker 04

  they're always grown up knowing they're, you know, at least that's how we know them only is that they know how it's done and we don't. And then there becomes a point where you know a little bit more and maybe you see that they knew a little bit less and, and, you know, and even later, when you end up to the ages of your where your parents, you can remember them quite clearly and you're like, oh shit, like that person I was putting all this, you know,

• 2:17:06Speaker 04

  talk in, you know, like their opinions, you know, and, you know, that's me now, you know, or

• 2:17:12Speaker 04

  and, you know, but also obviously with mentors and people that, you know, you looked up to. And of course, in the movie business, these people can be larger than life and they, you know, and, and when you meet them for the first time, you know, it's you're the, you're still the kid sitting in the theater, seeing that director's movie for the first time and and then as you, if you develop a relationship with them and a friendship, then obviously something else happens. And, you know, we see that in that scene with Peter and Jay, you know, I, and, and it's, yeah, it's that, I mean, I find it, it's, it's really sad too. And also really sad, the thing of like,

• 2:17:57Speaker 04

  you know, people have so much trouble, say, like, you know, these like lions of our industry of trouble getting a movie made or something and, you know, and then they pass away and then the tributes pour in and everybody talks about what an amazing, you know, thing and, you know, you know, you do wish they could have gotten a little more of that when they were still there.

• 2:18:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I was wondering how much of it you see even yourself in, because there's definitely a Dickensian Christmas past, present, future quality to the way that Jay is going through the stages of his life in the film. Are you seeing any of yourself in Peter Schneider? Is there any like, like cautionary tale quality to it?

• 2:18:36Speaker 04

  Well, I saw it in terms of Jay. I mean, in terms of like Jay is like one rung down, you know, and he's still, you know, has, you know, he's still got whatever cachet, power in his world, but, you know, he's getting older and it's movie stars are not a thing that we tend to want to get older. I mean, there's so many examples, you know, Cary Grant retiring before, you know, because he didn't want people to see him get old on camera. I mean, he, you know, he kind of, which is probably his own sort of vanity,

• 2:19:20Speaker 04

  but also even his own protection of the Cary Grant brand in some sense, you know,

• 2:19:26Sean Fennessey?

  I just was listening to someone talk about how he was offered Alita and turned it down because he couldn't see the idea of disassembling his on-screen persona for that movie.

• 2:19:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that's, Bogdanovich told me that he, at one point, I guess, was maybe going to direct Heaven Could Wait and with Beatty and they wanted, Beatty wanted Cary Grant, but he didn't want to be seen on camera. I think for Jay, it's, you know, not only in retrospect is it a, like a, an upsetting event, you know, Peter coming to him, you know, asking him for his name, you know, because Peter passes away, of course, so it's something you can't take back, or, you know, you can't have another experience after

• 2:20:17Speaker 04

  that with this person that you loved. But I think also, I'm sure there's also that feeling for him of like, that might be me next, you know. I mean, both versions. It might be me looking for somebody for work and it also might be me, you know, passing away.

• 2:20:37Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's, this is a tricky question because you said you don't go back and look at your films, but I asked Spike Lee this earlier this year, if there's a movie of his that he's made that he thinks deserves a second look or another go around in the culture that he really likes. And I don't know, do you have a version of that for yourself?

• 2:20:56Speaker 04

  What did he say?

• 2:20:58Sean Fennessey?

  He said 25th Hour, which I love.

• 2:21:00Speaker 04

  I feel like that's well, that's pretty well thought of, so.

• 2:21:04Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. Maybe he was just shining on one of his best.

• 2:21:13Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, a more recent one, I think White Noise does.

• 2:21:24Sean Fennessey?

  I really like it. I liked it at the time. And I wonder why you think maybe it didn't get go into the culture as much as the previous couple of films did?

• 2:21:36Speaker 04

  I don't know. I mean,

• 2:21:42Speaker 04

  I mean, the only thing I can say is from my experience in sort of going out with it was, for me, it was, it really was about COVID. I mean, not just about COVID, but it was as much about COVID as Eddington's about, you know, it was, and it, nobody wanted to talk about COVID. I mean, they still don't, you know, and, and I can't blame them in some sense, but I also thought, well, it's not act literally about it. It's, it's, it's, you know, I think about how hard it is for us as a culture to process

• 2:22:23Speaker 04

  sort of

• 2:22:28Speaker 04

  disaster or, you know, pandemic in that case and, and, you know, how we internalize it and essentially put it in our entertainment and, and, but when it really happens, it feels unreal to us. So.

• 2:22:53Speaker 04

  I guess I felt like nobody wanted to sort of take it on that way. So then they were taking it on in another way, which wasn't, it wasn't sort of how I intended the movie.

• 2:23:06Speaker 04

  You know, but it's always, you know, you're always sort of, Brian says in the documentary we made, you're always judged against the fashion of the moment. So it's sort of like, you know, that's out of your control.

• 2:23:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, I think Ari encountered that a little bit this year too with Eddington. But, you know, that when you, I assume when you were growing up and watching films, the idea of making something very contemporary that was focusing on what was happening was very celebrated. And now we're kind of, there's some discomfort with that, it feels like in the culture too.

• 2:23:36Speaker 04

  I know you see like movies like To Be or Not To Be or something that's like taking on, I mean, taking on, but also would make poking fun at, you know, Hitler and Nazi Germany. And it's like 1943 or something that movie, you know, or all the president's men or something like that. I mean, White Noises was, it was different because it was not literal and it's, you know, it was taking place in the eighties. It's from this book. It sort of has this other thing, but I do, I do think that, I hope people will look at that again over time and, you know, at least give it another shot.

• 2:24:15Sean Fennessey?

  No, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? Have you seen anything you like recently?

• 2:24:24Speaker 04

  Um, oh yeah. I mean, what would be the last great thing? I mean, in terms of, you know what I watched again, I mean, this is not, I've seen it many times, but I hadn't seen it in a little while was Small Change, the true film movie. We projected it.

• 2:24:43Speaker 04

  And have you seen that recently?

• 2:24:46Sean Fennessey?

  It's been a long time.

• 2:24:48Speaker 04

  It's, it's amazing. It's so good. I mean, it's sort of like, I mean, another movie I remember at the times, at least the way it was. Kind of contextualized for me when I first saw it. I mean, I didn't see it when it came out, but when I first saw it, whenever that was, it was sort of like the, like a lighter 400 blows, like it's kids, but it's

• 2:25:07Sean Fennessey?

  Too young, young boy, young girl, right?

• 2:25:09Speaker 04

  Well, it's, they're, they're, they're, it's, it's more ensemble than that, really. It's mostly these boys that did this, in this provincial school and, and the teachers and sort of the, it really is, it's very, I mean, it's almost like, in, in a sense, kind of alt mini in that way of like, it's, it's, it's a tableau. And the ending of it brings a boy and a girl together, but I just loved it. I mean, I just love seeing it again. And I, and then I was also thinking like, it's, I mean, I don't know as good as, but it's like,

• 2:25:51Speaker 04

  it's totally, in its own way, it's as good as 400 blows. It's like, it just, and I was thinking of like Truffaut getting sort of a bad rap during the seventies that he was like selling out in somewhere. I mean, it's such horseshit. Those movies are so good.

• 2:26:09Speaker 04

  And anyway, that was, that was the last thing I saw that I really liked. That was, I mean, it was only like a week and a half ago, but it was like, it really like, Greta and I just were like talking about it for days.

• 2:26:23Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great recommendation. Noah, congrats on Jay Kelly. Thanks for coming back.

• 2:26:27Speaker 04

  Thanks, Sean. It's nice to talk again.

• 2:26:34Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Noah Baumbach. Thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. We will be back on Friday to talk about Hamnet and the secret agent. And our favorite performances of 2025. And what else? Will the Netflix thing be done?

• 2:26:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 2:26:51Sean Fennessey?

  It'll be closed.

• 2:26:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 2:26:52Sean Fennessey?

  It'll be

• 2:26:52Amanda Dobbins?

  But it won't be a Netflix thing. It'll be David Ellison will now be in charge of your life.

• 2:26:56Sean Fennessey?

  Well, all right. We'll see you then.

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